Abstract: Urban geography, as a new branch of human geography in China, has developed very quickly since the 1980s, and achieved a lot of important results and significant theoretical methods in the research of many crucial problems, such as urban development and urbanization. Considering with the historical development progress of urban geography, this paper has collected the papers of urban geography from three major academic geographic journals (Acta Geographica Sinica, Scientia Geographica Sinica, and Geographical Research) from the start of the journal to the end of 2008, and summarized the dynamic characteristics of urban geography's research based on the quantity of papers, research types, research methods, research fields, the objects of study and the author affiliations. The core-authors were preliminarily analyzed by means of bibliometrics. the findings show that, with the nearly 30 years efforts, researches on China's urban geography have gained their own characteristics. The research viewpoint has changed from the macro perspective to emphasis on both macro and micro perspectives, the use of quantitative approaches has increased obviously, and case studies on the basis of empirical research has become a mainstream. The research of urban geography, mainly concentrated on three aspects in China: urbanization, urban system and urban spatial structure, was featured with practicality. The number of core-authors and their papers have increased, while the proportion has decreased relatively. It can illustrate the fact that the number of researchers on urban geography has increased continuously. It is suggested that disciplinary construction should be enhanced and the core authors should be supported in China, so as to ensure that the urban geography develops in a sustained and sound way.

Key words: core-authors, publication of articles, research field, research type, statistical analysis, urban geography