Abstract: In order to review the research progresses on soil respiration, 6363 articles on soil respiration published from 1999 to 2019 in the core set of the Web of Science^TM database were used as our data source. The CiteSpace knowledge map was used to clarify the cooperative relationships among countries, authors, institutions, discipline distribution, and to draw the network map of literature co-citation and term co-occurrence in the field. The results showed that: (1) The international soil respiration research experienced three phases: steady growth, rapid growth and fluctuating growth; (2) Countries such as the United States, France, Australia, Switzerland had strong influences on the field of soil respiration. The soil respiration research in China was started later but developed rapidly; (3) The study on soil respiration was highly interdisciplinary, involving Environmental Ecology, Agriculture, Environmental Science and Soil Science, and some other disciplines; (4) The current research hot spots were rhizodeposition and heterotrophic soil respiration, and in recent years, the frontier research in the field of soil respiration included nitrogen addition, climate warming, winter wheat, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.