This paper seeks to shed light on cooperative development through a bibliometric analysis of 568 articles culled from the Scopus database between 1927 and 2022. Using the Bibliometrix package in RStudio and the Biblioshiny web apps, the bibliometric analyses reveal a significant increase in the number of publications related to cooperative development over the years, indicating a growing interest in this topic among researchers. This study analysed the annual publication trends, the most influential journals and articles, the leading authors, and the countries of cooperative development research. The Sustainability (Switzerland) published the greatest number of cooperative development-related articles, followed by the Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, and Collection Management. Additional analyses included a keyword analysis, a co-occurrence network, and a thematic map to illustrate the evolution of pertinent themes and subthemes in cooperative development research. The article concludes with a discussion of limitations and recommendations for future research.