With the development of international and domestic social economy, aquaculture is facing new crises and challenges. Bibliometric analysis of aquaculture thematic documents which collected in the core database of Web of Science in 1997 to 2016. The result shows that the global aquatic science literature has entered a stable development in the last 20 years and the highly cited papers are generally in the fluctuating trend. North American and Western European countries have an absolutely advantage in the aquatic discipline. The three most main research directions in the aquaculture is marine freshwater biology, fisheries and environmental ecology. And the cross discipline is the highlight of the development of the aquatic science and other disciplines. University is the main research force of the global aquatic discipline and the coastal city university has a superior geographical advantage. In the last 20 years, China has been in a high-speed development period in the aquatic discipline research, but the high level output of the aquatic discipline is relatively less, and the aquatic discipline achievements need to be improved in the qualitative aspect. The research direction of aquatic products in our country is more focused on biological and chemical research. There is still have room for improvement in our universities compared with other world-class universities in the world.