Abstract: To understand the related research situation and future development trend of lake sediment research, the research methods of information visualization and network analysis were adopted, and the social network was drawn based on the papers in the field of lake sediment research for nearly 35 years (1985-2019) from Web of Science (WoS) and CNKI. The development trends, research hotspots and cutting-edge trends in the field of lake sediment research were analyzed. WoS database showed that the number of papers published in the field of lake sediment research at home and abroad showed a significant upward trend in recent 35 years. The top three countries in terms of document volume were the United States, China and Germany. In recent five years, the number of papers published in China was the highest, but the total citation frequency was relatively low. Bindler R, Birks H J B and Bakke J were the top 3 authors in the field.Journal of Paleolimnology, Hydrobiologia,and Limnology and Oceanography were the top 3 journals in this field in WoS database. The results showed that the number of papers published in CNKI database lagged behind that in WoS database, and domestic researchers tended to contribute to foreign journals. Journal of Lake Sciences was the largest source of literatures in CNKI database, among which Zhang Enlou, Jin Zhangdong and Xue Bin were the top three authors. Based on the results of the two databases, the research hotspots in the field of lake sediment research at home and abroad were roughly the same, mainly including the pollution and risk assessment of heavy metals and organic pollutants in sediments, and lake sediments and climate change research, etc. In the future, the research on PMF model and multivariate statistical methods, including correlation analysis, cluster analysis and factor analysis, need to be further strengthened.