This research aims to identify the development of research theme trends that were carried out from 1999 to 2024. Thus, the study’s results can provide recommendations regarding research themes that can be developed to meet theoretical and practical needs. Researchers use bibliometric analysis to obtain the appropriate analysis. This analysis method can be developed to support the dynamic development of public health science with settings and researchers from developing countries, both through quantitative and qualitative interpretation. The analysis results show that over 25 years, public health science, from the perspective of researchers and developing countries, has experienced dynamic development. This change was driven by the emergence of various issues in society itself. For example, the 1999–2009 shows that lifestyle changes have resulted in multiple diseases. In the following period, the concept of sustainability emerged, which encouraged awareness of sustainable development and resource scarcity that would affect public health quality. As for the 2020–2024 period, the emergence of Covid 19 changed the previous research paradigm.

Influenced by global financial crisis in 2008, many countries around the world have realized the significance of sustainable development. And green development, as the most important pathway to sustainability, has been implemented by various countries. In this context, green development has drawn great attention from academic researchers both at home and abroad in recent years and has become an interdisciplinary-oriented research direction. As an applied basic research field for exploring the structural change of resources and environment as well as regional sustainable development, geography plays an essential role in the research of green development. Based on an intensive literature review, this article firstly summarized the connotation and analytical framework of green development. Secondly, it systematically outlined the progress of green development research from the perspective of geography and thus extracted seven themes, that is, the influencing factors of green development, assessment methods, spatial and temporal characteristics of green development, green development and industrial transformation, green transformation of resource-based cities, the effect of green development, and green development institutions and recommendations. Comments were made on the existing studies including their shortcomings. Finally, future research emphases were discussed, aiming to provide references for further study on green development from the perspective of geography in China.