• Urbanization research rose sharply after 2010 toward sustainability themes. • USA, China, and UK lead global research and collaboration networks. • Five main themes link planning, environment, society, and technology. • Smart urbanism and resilience emerged as key r esearch frontiers. • Calls for stronger Global South and local government engagement. Urbanization has accelerated rapidly in recent decades, with nearly 70% of the global population projected to live in cities by 2050. As urban areas confront growing challenges, including climate change, housing shortages, and informal growth, urban research has diversified in scope and intensified in focus. However, comprehensive assessments of the field remain limited. This study fills that gap through a scientometric analysis of 14,282 publications indexed in Scopus between 1970 and 2024. It examines three distinct phases of urbanization research (1970–1990, 1991–2010, and 2011–2024) and employs VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and Bibliometrix (RStudio) to map publication trends, thematic evolution, and collaboration networks. Results reveal an exponential growth in urban research output after 2010, reflecting a growing focus on smart cities alongside the rising urgency of climate-related challenges. Five dominant thematic clusters were identified, focusing on urban planning and governance, environmental challenges, sustainability, socio-spatial transformations, and technological innovation. The analysis also highlights the rise of new research frontiers such as smart urbanism, climate adaptation, and resilience, alongside persistent geographic disparities in the Global South. These findings deepen understanding of the intellectual evolution of urbanization research and provide insights to guide future scholarship and sustainable urban policy.
Abdulaziz Almulhim (2026) studied this question.