Abstract:[Objective] To explore the research status and development of actinomycetes and their metabolites.[Methods] We used CiteSpace for a bibliometric review of the literature extracted from Web of Science (WOS) during 2001-2021.[Results] China ranked the first in the world in terms of the number of the published papers involving actinomycete metabolites.Chinese Academy of Sciences had the largest number of published papers in this field among all institutions.[Conclusion] The research of actinomycete metabolites tends to involve multiple disciplines such as pharmacology,pharmacy,chemistry,biochemistry and molecular biology.In terms of the research content,most researchers focus on the biosynthesis of actinomycete metabolites.In addition,the mining of actinomycete germplasm resources has become a hot topic in the field.