This paper, using literature analysis, explores the development of low-carbon pilot cities in China and its research progress, including the enrichment of the connotations of low carbon and low-carbon city, the progress in building China's low-carbon cities, the relevant research by Chinese and foreign scholars and its trends. The result shows that for the construction of low-carbon cities in China, domestic and foreign scholars have conducted in-depth research on the connotations of low-carbon economy and low-carbon city, low-carbon index, carbon discharges peak value, technological approaches, energy utilization, low-carbon society, policy instruments and evaluating system, but the research is still subject to several limitations. For example, judging from the evaluation system of low-carbon cities, the research assigned small weights to the non-technical indexes such as low-carbon policies, governance mechanism and performance appraisal system. Judging from the spatial scale of case studies, the studies on the relatively developed cities in eastern China outnumber those on the cities in western China, especially in the minority areas. In terms of the factors influencing the construction of low-carbon cities,inadequate attention has been paid to the related psychological factors, in particular those of ethnic minorities.
