OBJECTIVE: Family nursing is an essential component of nursing practice. The number of articles that researchers must be familiar with is increasing, along with the importance of selective searching and summarization. This study aims to explore the development trend and research spotlight through the analysis of literature related to family nursing from 1986 to 2018. METHODS: Science Citation Index literatures about family nursing in Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) were searched by subject terms. The function of database document statistics and analysis, cite space visualization software and Excel were used to measure and analyze the included documents and draw the visualization atlas. Each article was evaluated for the following characteristics: authors, institution, country, keyword, reference, cited-author, cited-journal, grant. RESULTS: A total of 1,224 literatures from 68 countries and regions as well as 1,749 research institutions, 331 journals, 833 funded institutions and 4,007 first authors and collaborators were included. There is an increasing trend in the amount of papers published in family nursing research. Among them, the United States (275, 22.47%), Brazil (196, 16.01%), and the University of São Paulo (63, 5.15%) share the highest number of publications. < JOURNAL OF FAMILY NURSING > (IF = 1.889) was the most published journal (126, 10.29%). BELL JM was the highest published author (29, 2.37%), SVAVARSDOTTIR EK was highly cited (181 citation). At present, the research spotlight in this field focus on the traditional research directions such as "NURSING", "FAMILY", "NURSE" and "CARE". But there are also new directions such as "QUALIFY OF LIFE", "PALLIATIVE", "CAREGIVER", "CHILD" and "DEMENTIA". The focus of research extends from "DRUGS, MEDICINE, CLINICAL, PSYCHOLIGY, EDUCATION, HEALTH" to "NURSING, SOCIETY". CONCLUSION: Family nursing started late, and its exploration was limited. Although family nursing was growing in certain countries, the fields involved in the research are still relatively narrow and lack interdisciplinary cross-fusion. The research field of family nursing needs to be further explored and refined in future practice.