Based on the Essential Science Indicators database, this study analyzed 1225 top papers of rice research from 2008 to 2018, which include 1219 highly cited papers and 24 hot papers in the field. VOSviewer software was used to visually analyze documents. Results showed that 5100 authors belonging to 1428 organizations from 84 countries/territories authored the papers in 277 core journals. There are 10 papers that have received more than 1000 citations. Top five core journals are Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, PNAS, Food Chemistry and Journal of Experimental Botany. Top 5 countries and regions were China, USA, Japan, England and Germany. Top 5 organizations identified are Chinese Academy of Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Huazhong Agricultual University, Nanjing Agricultural University and Zhejiang Univ
