<p>Duckweeds (<i>Lemnaceae</i>), small free-floating aquatic plants with rapid growth and high nutrient uptake capacity, have attracted increasing attention in aquatic ecology, wastewater remediation, biomass utilization, and plant biotechnology. However, global development patterns, research hotspots, and thematic evolution in duckweed research remain insufficiently evaluated. In this study, a bibliometric analysis was conducted using 1614 publications from the Web of Science Core Collection and 1572 records from Scopus between 2015 and 2025. VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used to visualize publication trends, international collaborations, keyword co-occurrence, and co-citation networks. The results showed a continuous increase in duckweed-related publications over the past decade, with China, the USA, India, and Germany as major contributors. Phytoremediation, wastewater treatment, nutrient recovery, biomass production, and starch accumulation remained dominant themes associated with aquatic environmental sustainability. Keyword analyses further revealed growing interest in molecular breeding, gene editing, genetic transformation, and plant-based bioreactor applications, while nanomaterial synthesis and bioactive compound development emerged as new topics. Nevertheless, low transformation efficiency, genotype-dependent responses, and limited field-scale validation still restrict broader applications of duckweed technologies. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the global duckweed research landscape and highlights future directions for sustainable environmental management and interdisciplinary innovation.</p>