Using CiteSpace, this paper makes a bibliometric analysis on 797 articles of CSSCI and core journals from 1999 to 2019 intercepted from the CNKI database. Through the key words co-occurrence map, time zone view and emergent diagram, the knowledge graph of long-term care research for the elderly in China is constructed, showing the hot topics, evolutionary paths, and research trends of long-term care research for the elderly in the past 20 years. In general, the research on long-term care for the elderly in China is advancing steadily, research results are increasing and research contents are deepening constantly. Universities are the main force in long-term care research, but there is less cooperation between scholars and research institutions,and a more rigorous academic research network has not yet been formed. The research has strong characteristics of the times, driven and guided by government policies to a large extent. The trend of localization and refinement are more obvious.