Objective: Combing the research status quo of life satisfaction in China, and exploring its evolution path and development context.Methods: A total of 635 valid bibliographies of 424 core journals and 211 master or doctor papers included in 2000- 2017 in CNKI database were analyzed by CiteSpace software. Results: The analysis of institution form a visual map containing 34 nodes, 9 connections, and the density is 0.016;the analysis of author form a visual map containing 79 nodes, 63 connections, and the density is 0.0204; the analysis of key words form a visual map containing 132 nodes, 221 connections, and the density is 0.0256. Conclusion: ① The analysis of institution shows that the cooperation between the institutions is not obvious, our country has not yet formed the core institutions, and life satisfaction research involving much disciplines, including psychology and pedagogy, but interdisciplinary cooperation is rare; ② The analysis of author shows that the authors has not formed a wide range of close cooperation , the adolescent student groups and the elderly group is the main study subject, the hotspot has changed with the development of social economy and culture; ③ The analysis of key words shows that researchers are keen to analyze the influencing factors of life satisfaction, among which social support, self- esteem and coping style are the most important influencing factors.