Looking back on the practices of ecological governance and environmental protection in China, the ecological governance policy system with the Chinese characteristics has been established after 50 years of exploration, reconstruction and deepening. In the critical period of ecological and economic development, clarifying the ecological governance system construction strate-gy and policy evolution logic, and promoting the optimization and upgrade of institutional mechanisms have important theoreti-cal and practical significance for realizing the harmonious coexistence of human and nature. By using the bibliometric tool Citespace, 710 national important documents from 1973 to 2022 were thoroughly reviewed. The results showed that: (1) The construction strategy of ecological governance institution has changed from the initial “one—to—one” pollution control ori-ented simple vertical linear relationship linkage mechanism to the gradual formation of ecological concept oriented cross-interacting network relationship coordination mechanism. In general, the “upper heavy and lower light” of decision-making led by a single department has changed to the “upper and lower linkage” equilibrium situation with the top ecological administra-tive unit as the core and multi-field departments participating in the implementation. (2) Ecological governance policy has expe-rienced the period of conceptual enlightenment and exploration: end-of-pipe control of environmental pollution (1973—1991), the period of sustainable development: ecological synergistic and comprehensive management (1992—2011), the period of ecological civilization: construction of development concept system (2012—2022). (3) Based on above results, the ecological governance modernization system and improvement path were discussed from three dimensions: mechanism improvement, benefit reconstruction, and multiple overall planning, providing reference for further research in related fields.