Abstract: Objective：To conduct a bibliometric analysis of problem-based learning(PBL) in foreign papers in order to provide reference for PBL researchers. Methods：The database was searched for PBL researches in foreign language.The BICOMS-2 software was used to extract and sort out the published language， journal， country and publication time.The author and keywords were extracted by VOSviewer 1.6.10 software， and generate clustering maps of high-yield authors and high-frequency keywords. Results：A total of 8 574 articles published in 22 languages were obtained through search.1 371 journals published relevant researches， and the most productive journal was Medical Education (480). 58 countries participated in the publication of PBL researches， and there were imbalances between the regions.The top two productive countries were the United States (3 803) and the United Kingdom (2 371).The top three authors were van der Vleuten CPM (69)， Schmidt HG (46) and Dolmans DHJM(35).The main authors formed 13 cooperative groups， but the cooperation between the various groups and the members of each group was not close. There were five hot research topics. The application and effect evaluation of PBL in the teaching and clinical ability training of different types of medical students was the main hotspot. Conclusion：The number of PBL researches is from increasing to decreasing.There is an imbalance in the journals involved.There are relatively few countries conducting research， and there are imbalances in different regions.Cooperation between countries needs to be further strengthened. There are many authors involved， but few high-yielding authors.There are five research themes， and new research topics still need to be developed.