This study maps the evolution of China image research in the world. Through text mining and content analysis of 161 articles in Social Science Citation Indexed journals published from 1998 to 2015, this paper outlines the authors, themes, theories, methodologies, and representative viewpoints in the research on China's global image.Results show that the research on China image increased year by year, with a skyrocketing growth after 2008. Regarding the origins of research, China, the U. S., the neighboring countries of China in Southeast Asia, and some European countries generated the majority of China image studies. As regards to the disciplines, the studies were mainly from journalism and communication, political science, economics, and management. While the studies from different disciplines had diverse research foci, there has been an emerging interdisciplinary tendency in the research on China's global image. With regard to themes, word frequency analysis and text mining revealed five themes in this field, namely, 1)image communication which concentrated on image construction and relationship management;2)national image and public diplomacy which discussed the effect of public diplomacy on image construction;3)destination image and tourism management which treated China as a tourist destination;4)corporate image and internationalization which aimed to explore the effect of corporate products and brands on China image, and 5)city image and urban planning which focused on urban expansion and environmental management. The theoretical approaches included stereotype, framing theory, agenda setting, theory of the other, branding theory, cognitive theory and crisis management theory. In terms of methods, China image scholars used more quantitative methods such as content analysis and survey. Generally, the perceptions of China image varied across countries and changed over time and were influenced by the economic and social conditions. Not only official communication, but also non-governmental contacts influenced the foreigners' image cognition of China. And the forms of communication were mainly public diplomacy, official media propaganda, local government cooperation, international trade between companies, major sport events, transnational tourism, and social media interaction.The limitation of current research is the lack of theory building. Most studies were too micro and trivial, without general significant innovations. Overall, this study maps the current research on China image in the whole world, with an attempt to promote China image among different disciplines, and to offer strategic advice to Chinese government as far as China's soft power enhancement is concerned. This study not only presents the situation, shortcomings and potential direction in the research on China image, but also provides practical references and advice for China image construction from multivariate aspects, such as national image, city image, and corporate image.