Under circumstances of pervasive global aging combined with weakened traditional family elder care, an incremental demand for institutional elder care is generated. This has led to a surge in research regarding institutional elder care. Rural residents’ institutional elder care is receiving more attention as a major theme in social sciences and humanities research. Based on 94 articles related to rural institutional elder care, this study identified the most influential articles, journals and countries in rural institutional elder care research since 1995. This was done using science mapping methods through a three-step workflow consisting of bibliometric retrieval, scoping analysis and qualitative discussion. Keywords revealed five research mainstreams in this field: (1) the cognition and mental state of aged populations, (2) the nursing quality and service supply of aged care institutions, (3) the aged care management systems’ establishment and improvements, (4) the risk factors of admission and discharge of aged care institutions, and (5) deathbed matters regarding the aged population. A qualitative discussion is also provided for 39 urban and rural comparative research papers and 55 pure rural research papers, summarizing the current research progress status regarding institutional elder care systems in rural areas. Gaps within existing research are also identified to indicate future research trends (such as the multi-dimensional and in-depth comparative research on institutional elder care, new rural institutional elder care model and technology, and correlative policy planning and development), which provides a multi-disciplinary guide for future research.

With the rise of global urbanization, the rural built environment has undergone tremendous changes. As such, the rural built environment impacts on residents’ daily travel behavior is getting more researchers’ attention. To date, most of the research focuses on urban areas in developed countries. To understand the state-of-the-art of interplay between the rural built environment and travel behaviors and to identify future research directions, this study adopts a science mapping approach to identify the relevant topics, authors, journals, and countries of the research done. This study proceeds through bibliometric retrieval of articles from 2005, followed by scientometric analysis and qualitative discussion. 37 documents are found to compare urban and rural domains, with 28 on the rural built environment. Research gaps and the research trends are discussed, of which the main themes are multi-dimensional correlation comparison of rural transportation service systems and emerging transportation modes, the influence of rural social and cultural factors on travel behavior, and low-carbon sustainable transportation. This review provides empirical foundation for current state-of-the-art and identifies the future research directions, specifically for rural built environment impact on travel behavior.