In the context of climate change, enhanced human activities and ecological changes, the danger level for mountain floods has increased significantly, posing direct or potential hazards to local residents. To determine the current status, focus and trends in mountain flood research, in this study, we visualize the number of publications and citations, the countries and institutions engaged in research, co-citations and key literature, keyword categories and research areas, using keyword timeline analysis and burst detection based on the bibliometric software CiteSpace and VOSviewer and the Web of Sciences core collection database. The results show that the total number of publications and citations in the mountain flood field has experienced rapid growth to date. The United States, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland are the main countries driving the development of the field. The field is of great interest within multiple disciplinary categories and is characterized by multiple research hotspots, multiple research objectives, and cross-fertilization of multiple disciplinary categories. Analysis of the keyword timeline network and highlighted words show that disaster risk evaluation based on remote-sensing technology, the alpine region of the Himalayas, the response mechanisms of heavy rainfall to mountain floods, and the construction of hydrological models, will be research hotspots in the future.