[Objective] To gain insight the trends, evolution and the current status of coastal ecological restoration research, a comprehensive analysis of the coastal ecological restoration was conducted.[Methods] A total of 866 papers about coastal ecological restoration in the database of Web of Science from 1996 to 2019 were used as data sources. Keywords time zone evolution and literature co-citation network were conducted using CiteSpace 5.3 analysis software.[Results] ① Research on coastal ecological restoration could be divided into three stages:initial period, stable growth period and expansion period. Keywords such as "ecosystem service", "environmental reclamation" and "climate change" had become the high-frequency words in recent years; ② The relevant research mainly focused on three aspects:coastal ecological environment basic research, ecological restoration engineering and ecological management.[Conclusion] Coastal landscape changes caused by reclamation, scientific assessment of coastal ecosystem services and the impact of "blue carbon" on global climate change would become a research hotspot in the future.