social network analysis (sna) has been introduced to mainland china since the end of last century. it is often stated that sna research has experienced rapid growth in china over these years, but few studies have been conducted to prove the statement. this paper aims at exploring the research status and development of sna in china by a critical assessment of journal articles. our findings show that sna is an evolving and diversified research area which has rich themes and topics, and can be applied to those studies on different levels, context and disciplines, and attract researchers and scholars from various fields and domains. in addition, the information community (library & information science and information systems) plays a leading role in the sna related researches. the paper also points out the research on sna in china has some limitations, so it proposes several implications for the future development of sna research from perspectives of information science.