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• A bibliometric analysis on machine learning research in all engineering fields. • VOSviewer is employed to this study based on retrieved 3057 articles. • Research distributions of this topic are identified. • A detailed discussion on the knowledge bases, research hotspots and frontiers. In this work, we conducted a visualized bibliometric analysis to map the research trends of machine learning in engineering (MLE) based on articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection published between 2000 and 2019. The research distributions, knowledge bases, research hotspots, and research frontiers for MLE studies are revealed by using VOSviewer software and visualization technology. The growth of the literature related to MLE averaged 24.3% in the past two decades. A total of 3057 peer-reviewed papers from 96 countries published in 1299 different journals were identified. The USA was the most productive country, with 23.73% of the overall articles and 32.25% of the overall citations. The most active research organization was MIT, with 41 publications and 1079 citations, and the Journal of Machine Learning Research had the largest number of citations in the field of MLE. In particular, our findings indicate that the research issues of "random forests", "support vector machine", "extreme learning machine", "deep learning", "statistical learning theory", and "Python machine learning" formed the knowledge bases of MLE from 2000 to 2019, while the research hotspots focused on applications of machine learning benchmark algorithms. Burst detection analysis results showed that more burst keywords emerged and had a higher frequency of change after 2010. This study provides an insight view of the overall research trends of MLE and may help researchers better understand this research field and predict its dynamic directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]