ABSTRACT

The process of urbanization in Africa is receiving global attention and is subject to comprehensive scientific research due to the wide socioeconomic influence of this continent. Adopting specific search terms and strategies, this paper conducts a statistical analysis of the research articles addressing African urbanization (n = 2046) from the Web of Science core collection. The results show that since 2006, research on African urbanization has entered a stage of rapid development. South Africa and the Global North are the main regions engaged in research on African urbanization. With the application of the bibliometric software HistCite, this paper tries to investigate the research streams and trends contributed by highly cited articles. The main research streams can be divided into 5 areas, with the relationship between disciplines becoming stronger. Population, economy and land-use are the core issues of African urbanization studies, with the largest volume of highly cited articles. Furthermore, the changes in research hotspots were explored based on keyword analysis by CiteSpace. The results indicate that the topics of research hot spots by African and Global North researchers are different, and the Global North has a stronger influence on African urbanization studies.

摘要

由于非洲大陆广泛的社会经济影响，非洲的城市化进程正在受到全球关注，并受到综合科学研究。本文采用特定的搜索词和策略，对 Web of Science 核心合集中涉及非洲城市化 (n = 2046) 的研究文章进行了统计分析。结果表明，2006年以来，非洲城市化研究进入快速发展阶段。南非和全球北方是从事非洲城市化研究的主要地区。借助文献计量软件HistCite，本文试图调查高被引文章贡献的研究流和趋势。主要研究方向可分为5个领域，随着学科之间的联系越来越紧密。人口、经济和土地利用是非洲城市化研究的核心问题，高被引论文数量最多。此外，基于CiteSpace的关键词分析，探索研究热点的变化。结果表明，非洲和北半球研究者的研究热点不同，北半球对非洲城市化研究的影响更大。