Abstract: Central Asia plays a prominent role in national security and international communication of China，especially in border areas adjacent to Central Asia. Studies on different subjects about Central Asia are beneficial not only to strengthen communication of economy，technology and culture between China and Central Asian countries，but also to promote the development of the west of China，and at the same time are vital for maintaining frontier stability and national reunification. Based on CNKI database，literature composition and paper characteristics on Central Asian published in China from 1990 to 2012 were explored by method of bibliometric analysis. A total of 7 001 target papers were searched by specific searching strategy，the database source was analyzed of all target papers firstly，and then the following contents were explored: annual change，fund source，subject and research institution of the target literatures both from view of Central Asian and five countries respectively. The results indicate that China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database （CAJD） could be taken as the major data sources for Central Asia researches in China，as it accounts for 59.9% of the relevant literatures. The researches on Central Asia in China has experienced three development stages，which were slow developing （1990-2000），fast developing （2001-2010） and tending to stable step （2011-2012） respectively. As for each country in Central Asia，the paper-published numbers about Kazakhstan，Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were peaked in 2009，and that of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were peaked in 2007，after the peaking year，paper-published numbers of all five countries began to decrease and tend to stability. From the fund-supporting view，the domestic research on Central Asia was mainly supported by National Natural Science Fund and National Social Science Fund （82.1%），and the fund-supporting proportion of research about Kazakhstan，Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan was relatively higher than that about the other two countries. Subject distribution of studies on Central Asia in China was disproportional extremely，topics such as politics and economics account for as many as 65.8%，while topics such as natural science，literature and history etc. account for less than 5%. Besides，subjects of all researches about Central Asia were mostly connected with Kazakhstan，Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The institutions that carry out the researches about Central Asia are characterized by an obvious regionality，the universities and institutes（10 institutes） in Xinjiang compose the researching units with the highest paper-published percent of 45.9%，and the universities are the mainly-researching bodies among the research units in Xinjiang；Among the five countries of Central Asia，Kazakhstan，Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are the main research subjects of various units，although their research-focusing state is different one another.

Key words: 1990-2012, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Central Asia, bibliometric, China