为反映《遥感学报》及中国遥感学科近20年的发展趋势，针对《遥感学报》在1997年-2015年期间出版的所有1804篇论文进行了统计分析，给出了国内高校及研究机构的发文量排名和受国家自然科学基金资助的发文情况，并对比了常设栏目和专题栏目的论文发文量及被引用情况。通过比较4个时间段内论文关键词的共现关系，反映出随着新的卫星载荷不断发射，观测技术由单一观测变为多源卫星观测，遥感定量反演模型由简单变得更为复杂，遥感技术应用也由最初的测绘、国土调查等单一应用逐渐变为多学科交叉应用，特别是在近年来国内外社会热点的驱动下，遥感技术已开始在灾害应急、全球变化、大气污染、粮食安全等领域发挥出越来越重要的作用。此外，无论是在当前遥感学科发展还是国家需求的现状下，都迫切需要建立国家级的遥感应用综合信息系统，以提高对环境和资源的宏观调控能力，为中国经济和社会可持续发展战略、布局和趋势预测，为资源管理、环境保护、防灾减灾以及实现资源环境、经济、社会的宏观调控，提供科学的数据和决策支持。

The Journal of Remote Sensing, which printed its first issue in 1997, publishes research on remote sensing, with a focus on the real-world effects of scientific innovations. To investigate the development of the Journal of Remote Sensing and remote sensing science in China over the last 20 years, we analyzed the status and trends of 1,804 papers published in the Journal of Remote Sensing from 1997 to 2015. Based on bibliometrics, statistical investigation items are presented in this paper, including the total number of citations per year, average number of citations per paper, ranking among the top institutes and universities in terms of the annual number of published papers, annual number of papers supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and so on. We also separately analyzed the quantity of publications and their citations related to standing issues and special ones. By comparing the co-occurrence relation of keywords during four periods, we conclude that with the increasing number of satellites launched successfully, quantitative retrieval models tend to become highly complex, and satellite observation technologies change from single-sensor satellite remote sensing to multi-sensor satellite remote sensing. In addition, a large number of remote sensing studies focus on multi-disciplinary crossing research, including disaster response, global change, air pollution, and food security. In this context, establishing national remote sensing application systems is imperative. Such systems will improve the state's capacity for macro-control of the environment and resources, and they can provide a scientific basis and decision support for resource management, environmental protection, disaster reduction, and macro-control.