based on the statistics of 130 thesauri having been published in china so far, this article analyzes the development of thesauri in china from the origin, publication year, academic disciplines and quantity of entries collected, and re-defines the development stages. in addition, by collecting the 1,000 relevant research papers, the article also analyzes the theoretical studies from the aspects of the quantity of papers and research subjects in order to give a clear picture of the development and features of the researches on thesaurus in china.