Aims The study aims to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the research on magnet hospital from 1988-2020. Design A statistical and visualization bibliometric analysis was conducted between February-May 2020. Methods The information was extracted from Web of Science by the topic advanced search strategy. HistCite-Pro, Excel, GunnMap, BibExcel and VOSviewer were used to extract, integrate and visualize the bibliometric information. Furthermore, the research contents of the core-authors were explored and summarized by reviewing all the published articles. Results Articles (N = 396) published in 107 journals were retrieved in the Web of Science from 1988-2020. The USA (N = 319) and University of Pennsylvania (N = 38) were the most productive country and institution respectively. Author co-citation and bibliographic-coupling network analysis identified that Aiken, Kramer, Laschinger, Schmalenberg, Lake and Johantgen were the major contributors and leaders in this field. According to the research content of the main contributors and keyword co-occurrence analysis result, the research focus could be divided into four parts: the mechanism leading to the outcomes differences for magnet hospital, the evidence-based practice, the outcomes comparison between magnet hospital and non-magnet hospital and the practice environment. Conclusion This bibliometric study offered a comprehensive overview of current study status of magnet hospital and this area has been drawn increasing attention over the years. However, the research on magnet hospital is still relative limited and needs to be paid more attention, especially in developing countries. Impact This study showed the most contributed countries, journals, institutions, authors and the main themes related to magnet hospital, which would help researchers find potential partners, optimize and deepen future research, such as enhancing the magnet hospital research in developing countries, improving the evidence-based research and considering the impact caused by different culture. Furthermore, this study can also give suggestions for magnet hospital policy makers.