OBJECTIVE To e xplore the research hots pots and development frontiers of ursolic acid in recent 20 years，and to provide reference for researchers in this field. METHODS Research literatures related to ursolic acid in Web of Science from Jan. ， 1，2002 to Dec. 31，2021 were collected ，and visualization analysis was performed on countries or regions ，research institutions ， authors，journals and keywords involved in the literatures using CiteSpace software ，to obtain the spatial and temporal distribution of ursolic acid and research frontiers. The research status and development frontier of ursolic acid were further analyzed by analyzing keywords co-occurrence ，keyword emergence ，keyword clustering ，etc. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS Totally 3 528 valid papers were included in this study ，and the top three countries were China ，India and the United States. Analysis of publishing institutions showed that Chinese Academy of Sciences ，Univisity of Karachi and China Medical University were the top 3 research institutions in the list of publication amount. Analysis of published journals showed that Molecules （127 articles），Journal of Ethnopharmacology（90 articles），Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry （75 articles）had high number of literatures on ursolic acid. The analysis of keyword analysis showed that pharmacological effects ，such as antitumor activity of ursolic acid ， antioxidant activity ，antibacterial activity and anti-inflammatory activity ，are always the focus of the research ；the mechanism ursolic acid induced apoptosis ，oxidative stress and autophagy ，the research on ursolic acid signaling pathway ，drug delivery of ursolic acid nanoparticles were the research direction in the future.