This study investigates the development of agricultural drought (AD) research using VOSviewer and the Web of Science (WoS) database. It analyzes 7416 AD-related articles published between 2000 and 2023, revealing a rising trend in literature, with a recent acceleration. China leads with 1833 publications, followed by the USA with 1278. The top five journals are Sustainability, Frontiers in Plant Science, Agricultural Water Management, Water, and Agronomy-Basel. Key keywords include climate change, yield, variability, impact, growth, and adaptation. The study highlights four research hotspots and four future research directions. The research shows that AD literature has increased significantly, with the number of publications rising from 45 per year in 2000–2006 to 629 per year in 2016–present. The distribution of publications across journals, institutions, and countries reveals that China and the USA are the leading contributors. The top 20 institutions contributing to AD research include the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the University of California: Davis. The study also identifies four clusters of research topics: drought monitoring indicators and regional adaptability, the impact mechanism of climate change on drought, the impact of drought on crop yield, and agriculture adapting to climate change and extreme events. The research highlights the importance of drought monitoring indicators, the impact of climate change on drought, the impact of drought on crop yield, and the need for agriculture to adapt to climate change and extreme events. The study also identifies four future research directions: research on drought monitoring and climate change impact, research on the mechanism of drought formation, research on the chain transmission process of droughts, and the region of interest has developed mainly in Asia and Africa. The study concludes that visualization analysis can systematically display the research topics and categories of a certain discipline, providing a valuable reference for further AD-related research. The limitations of the study include the influence of the literature data sources and the inability to conduct an in-depth analysis of the underlying mechanisms involved. This bibliometric analysis has the potential to guide future research directions, fostering networking and collaboration among researchers worldwide.This study investigates the development of agricultural drought (AD) research using VOSviewer and the Web of Science (WoS) database. It analyzes 7416 AD-related articles published between 2000 and 2023, revealing a rising trend in literature, with a recent acceleration. China leads with 1833 publications, followed by the USA with 1278. The top five journals are Sustainability, Frontiers in Plant Science, Agricultural Water Management, Water, and Agronomy-Basel. Key keywords include climate change, yield, variability, impact, growth, and adaptation. The study highlights four research hotspots and four future research directions. The research shows that AD literature has increased significantly, with the number of publications rising from 45 per year in 2000–2006 to 629 per year in 2016–present. The distribution of publications across journals, institutions, and countries reveals that China and the USA are the leading contributors. The top 20 institutions contributing to AD research include the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the University of California: Davis. The study also identifies four clusters of research topics: drought monitoring indicators and regional adaptability, the impact mechanism of climate change on drought, the impact of drought on crop yield, and agriculture adapting to climate change and extreme events. The research highlights the importance of drought monitoring indicators, the impact of climate change on drought, the impact of drought on crop yield, and the need for agriculture to adapt to climate change and extreme events. The study also identifies four future research directions: research on drought monitoring and climate change impact, research on the mechanism of drought formation, research on the chain transmission process of droughts, and the region of interest has developed mainly in Asia and Africa. The study concludes that visualization analysis can systematically display the research topics and categories of a certain discipline, providing a valuable reference for further AD-related research. The limitations of the study include the influence of the literature data sources and the inability to conduct an in-depth analysis of the underlying mechanisms involved. This bibliometric analysis has the potential to guide future research directions, fostering networking and collaboration among researchers worldwide.