Surgical hip dislocation (SHD) is a powerful and safe approach used to address pathologic lesions around the hip joint, and therefore, many studies have been conducted in this field. However, no bibliometric studies regarding the global research trend concerning SHD have been studied yet. This study aims to determine the research status in the field of SHD research between 2001 and 2021. The publications related to SHD from 2001 to 2021 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Three bibliometric tools were used for this study. The main analyses include publication counts, contributions of countries, institutions, authors, journals and funding agencies, as well as analyses on clustering of references and keywords. In total, 498 articles were identified. The annual publication counts of SHD showed an ascending tendency as a whole. The United States has the most prominent contributions, with the most number of publications and the highest value of H-index. The University of Bern was the organization that produced the most literature. Professors Ganz R, Siebenrock KA, Tannast M, Steppacher SD and Leunig M were the core authors in this field. The most productive journal was Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. Burst keyword detection suggested that the following research directions, including 'surgical hip dislocation', 'outcome', 'fixation' and 'pain', are considered the research hotspots and deserve more attention. In conclusion, this is the first bibliometric analysis that provides a comprehensive overview of SHD research, which may assist investigators in exploring new directions for this technique.© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press.