Because of the lack of spatial analysis tools, industrial ecology is limited in providing effective and accurate support for industrial management. By virtue of geographical information systems (GIS) technology, GIS-based industrial ecology has become a new research direction for industrial ecology. To summarize existing research and identify directions for future research, recent progress in GIS-based industrial ecology has been systematically reviewed in this paper by means of bibliometrics and comparative analysis, and the following conclusions were obtained. Substance metabolism, industrial symbiosis, and life cycle assessment (LCA) are three main aspects of GIS-based research of industrial ecology. With the introduction of GIS into the study of substance metabolism, the spatial and temporal distribution pattern of substance metabolism can be better demonstrated, providing a new method for substance metabolism. Based on GIS technology, potential industrial symbiotic opportunities could be increased, and the planning and administration of an eco-industrial park including the location, layout, and waste recycling of industries, could be optimized. Combining with GIS, LCA can help supplement, consummate, and manage the traditional data, which will be useful to explore the impacts of production and industrial activity on the environment, or to assess the influence of spatial features and land use on the environmental impact. However, the main emphasis of research undertaken locally and internationally on GIS-based industrial ecology differed. In the domestic research scenario, studies on substance metabolism are few, and these focused on the substance metabolism and inventory analysis of infrastructures at the city scale. Internationally, the research focus has been on the substance metabolism of metals such as copper, and zinc. In the case of industrial symbiosis, domestic research focuses on eco-industrial parks, while internationally, the focus is on the identification of the potential industrial symbiosis at the city scale. In case of LCA, domestic researches concentrate on the GIS-based LCA database and material information management system, while foreign researches focus on regionalization of LCA, assessing land use impact in LCA, and mapping the flows of pollutants. However, the commonality between the domestic and foreign research methods is centered on the spatial analysis, buffer analysis, and database technology. It is expected that GIS-based industrial ecology will provide effective support for industrial sustainability management.