A bibliometric analysis of smart cities and the internet of things

Abstract

The Internet of things (IoT) is a concept that was introduced into daily life with the Industry 4.0 revolution. It allows for interaction and knowledge sharing not only between humans and between humans and machines, but also between machines themselves. A good example of the IoT is the use of smart appliances: smart appliances create smart homes, and smart homes make smart buildings, resulting in smart cities. Although there is no universally agreed definition of a smart city, it generally means the use of technology and evidence to enhance a city or the services provided to its residents. This study aims identify the trends in global research on the IoT and smart cities through a bibliometric analysis of the scientific publications indexed by Web of Science (WoS) in the years between 2011 and 2021. There are few studies in the literature that have focused on both IoT and smart cities in such a wide variety in addition which makes different kinds of bibliometric analysis. We analyzed the number of documents published, the most highly cited papers, the countries and the authors with the most publications, using the VOSviewer program. This bibliometric analysis of existing work in this area offers valuable insights and a reference for future research for academics and practitioners in the field of IoT and smart cities.