Submerged macrophytes have attracted increasing attention in lake restoration due to the importance of their structuring communities and stabilizing functions in lake ecosystems. However, there is still a lack of systematic reviews on lake restoration with submerged macrophytes. Thus, we performed a systematic review based on a bibliometric analysis via analyzing and visualizing 934 published works from 1996 to 2023 from the Web of Science core collection. Publication characteristics were summarized, and keyword co-occurrence networks, reference co-citation analysis, and keyword burst tests were conducted. Our results suggest that the increasing attention in this field has partly resulted from the many water treatments and scientific schemes in Europe, China, and the USA and extensive international cooperation. The development of this field was divided into three stages based on keyword bursts (e.g., early, turning, and recent stages). Alternative stable states and biomanipulation laid the foundations of this field in the early stage. Progress in the field was discussed based on four aspects, the influence of environmental factors on submerged macrophytes, theory and mechanisms, targets, and evaluation and methods. Therefore, our results provide a new and comprehensive understanding of lake restoration with submerged macrophytes.