Abstract: Soil bacteria are the most widely distributed and largest microbial group, which plays an irreplaceable role in the soil environment. To better explore the hotspot of soil bacteria, 34 918 papers were collected from the Web of Science from 2010 to 2020 and were visualized by bibliometric analysis. The results show the following. The amount of research on soil bacteria showed a trend of gradual increase and did not reach saturation state, which had a broad development prospect. China has published the highest number of papers in the soil bacteria field, accounting for 27.09% of the global total, with 9 458 papers. Among the top 10 scientific research institutions and scholars, China occupies 6 th and 4 th places, respectively. In recent years, the focus and hotspot of research is the production and maintenance mechanism of soil bacterial diversity and the function of soil bacteria, including the spatial distribution of bacteria and the response to the environment, community assembly, biogeochemical cycling, microbial remediation, and the health of plants and soil. Although soil bacteria research has strong application prospects, it still faces significant challenges. Therefore, we must break through the existing technical means to link the characteristics of soil bacteria to ecosystem functions and promote its development.