Clarifying the progress and development orientation of research on SDGs will help improve the follow-up study and the implementation of SDGs. Based on the core collection database of Web of Science, this paper made bibliometric analysis of publications related to SDGs and drew the knowledge atlas using a visualization software CiteSpace. The results show that: (1) Research on SDGs has experienced three stages including beginning, rapid growth and stable development. The cumulative number of publications which cover multidisciplinary fields increases steadily. (2) Countries like the United Kingdom, the United States and China are the main research strength of SDGs, and the influence of developing countries on SDGs research also continues to grow. (3) Environmental issues, multi-cooperation, global governance and localization of SDGs are popular topics of research on SDGs, while health of citizens and promoting education for sustainable development are the focus of future research on SDGs. In view of the results of bibliometric analysis, follow-up studies should pay attention to regional SDGs assessment, the extension of data sources of indicators and the formulation of sustainable development strategies.