Background <p>More than 90% of the carbon in grassland ecosystems is stored in the soil. Grassland land-use has been considered as a fundamental aspect altering soil carbon pool dynamics in the context of global change. However, a comprehensive understanding of the effects of different land-use practices on grassland soil carbon pools is lacking.</p> Methods <p>Based on 2151 papers retrieved from the Web of Science database, we used bibliometric methods for the first time to summarize the research areas and trends of grassland soil carbon pools under various land uses.</p> Results <p>Our results showed that (1) Management, sequestration, nitrogen, land-use, and dynamics were the most frequently occurring keywords. (2) Co-occurrence network analysis classified the keywords into three thematic clusters: (i) carbon and nitrogen coupling mechanisms regulating soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics, (ii) microbial-mediated pathways linking management practices to SOC sequestration, (iii) cascading climate–vegetation–SOC. (3) Thematically, the hot topics shifted from focusing on the relationship between grassland biomass and SOC at broad geographic scales to gradually emphasizing the mechanisms of soil microbial influence on SOC, and from focusing on the effects of nitrogen deposition to focusing on the effects of global climate change on SOC. (4) We further summarize the trends of SOC pool changes under different land-use. Establishing multi-pool management to optimize soil carbon sequestration may be the key to sustainable grassland ecosystem development.</p> Conclusions <p>This study summarizes the research progress and future hotspots of grassland soil carbon pools under diverse land use patterns, which can help to improve the carbon sequestration potential and mitigate the effect of climate change. Better integration of molecular and ecosystem experimentation with mathematical modeling is essential for future smart management of grassland SOC pool.</p>