Abstract:  Local legislation plays an important role in optimizing the allocation of legislative resources and reflecting the needs of local specialization legislation. By using visual analysis software CiteSpace, the literature data of the evolution and development of Chinas local legislative research in the past 20 years is analyzed through methods of keyword co-occurrence, co-word cluster analysis and strategic coordinates. The results show that the hot topics focus on legislative model, post-legislative evaluation, executive legislation, creative legislation and governance of legislation.Public participation,legislative concept and civil rights have gradually become the frontiers in local legislative research.

Key words:  local legislation, bibliometrics, co-word clustering analysis, strategic coordinates