The policy of Sustainable Development Pilot Zones (hereinafter referred to as pilot zones) is the local pilot demonstration work. It advocates that pilot zones design experimental themes based on their characteristics, explore typically sustainable development practices by themselves, and rely on technological innovation to solve the problems that constrain the local sustainable development. As a pilot policy with the longest construction time, the widest coverage, and the most diverse experimental subjects in the field of sustainable development, the policy of pilot zones has accumulated a certain amount of research. The past research mostly focuses on the conceptual and framework discussion of development concepts, the comprehensive assessment of the sustainable development of pilot zones, the calculation of the degree of coupling and coordination of regional development, and the efficiency difference of the input and output of sustainable development. It has laid the foundation for the theoretical research and policy practice of pilot zones. In order to systematically sort out the overall evolution of the pilot zone research and provide a comprehensive reference for future research, this paper makes a knowledge domains mapping analysis on the research that focuses on pilot zones and Innovation Demonstration Zones for Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Agenda (hereinafter referred to as the innovation demonstration zones) from the perspective of bibliometrics. It aims to clarify the stage characteristics, research fields, core issues, frontier hotspots and scientific cooperation network structure of the pilot zone research, and proposes possible future research directions. The results show that the number of papers published on the subject of pilot zones fluctuates in general. The local cooperation between researchers and research institutions is strong; the core issues of the research are always about the policy practices of sustainable development in pilot zones; the frontiers of research correspond to the background of macroeconomic and social development, and sustainable development strategies have always been hot issues; it has gone through the process from popularizing sustainable development concepts to practicing sustainable development models. In the new global situation of Sustainable Development Goals (hereinafter referred to as the SDGs), in order to better play the role of pilot zones and innovation demonstration zones as pilot policies, this paper proposes possible research directions: 1) to strengthen the connection with SDGs research; 2) to increase the research on the development driven by technological innovation; 3) to promote systematic research on typical sustainable development problems and solutions.