Tourism is a complex phenomenon that encompasses society, the economy, and the environment. With the global expansion of the tourism industry following the Second World War, its impacts have received increasing attention. In particular, the sociocultural impacts of tourism have emerged as a core topic and priority area within tourism geography since the 1960s, when it became an established field of inquiry in English-speaking countries. In this paper, authors review and examine the literature on tourism's sociocultural impacts extracted from several major journals. Through an assessment of this literature, authors identified and selected approximately 100 relevant studies for the analysis. Margaret Deery has divided the process of conducting sociocultural impact research into several stages. Authors trace key developments in the research on tourism's sociocultural impacts since the 21st Century, focusing the analysis on four aspects; residents' perceptions, cultural changes, place identity, and social structures. Authors' review and analysis show that research content in this field has developed rapidly in depth and breadth, both in China and abroad. However, this research has mainly been empirical and focused on communities and tourism, with less attention paid to aspects of law. In general, the literature reveals similar conclusions, with a lack of discussion of influential factors and mechanisms, and slow theoretical progress. Most of the studies are, therefore, of the "filling in" rather than the "forward-looking" variety, offering little scope for guiding practice. Conceptually, they rely on social exchange theory to predict and explain residents' perceptions and attitudes towards tourism, and on life cycle theory, which assumes that the attitudes and behavior of residents will change according to the different developmental stages of tourism. However, in the twenty-first century, the theoretical frames used in tourism studies have broadened considerably to include disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics, and ecology. For example, recent studies have adopted a wide range of theoretical constructs such as community attachment, emotional solidarity, creative destruction, social disruption, actor-networks, resilience assessments, landscape information chains, and cultural systems. These have variously been used to analyze the four sociocultural aspects of tourism's impact that have been described. However, although engaging with multidisciplinary theories is important in tourism research, the evolution of "home grown" theories specific to this field of inquiry is even more valuable, and marks a critical step in the maturing of the field. Regarding research methods, the analysis showed that questionnaire surveys and structural equation models were mainly used to identify and assess residents' perceptions, attitudes, and behavior relating to tourism. Qualitative methods were rarely used for this aspect of the research. Occasionally, mail communications and phone calls were used as methods of data collection. Conversely, qualitative research methods such as semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews, and ethnography were used to explore the impact of tourism on cultural changes, place identity, and social structures. Additionally, focus groups, informal conversations and narratives, as well as some of the quantitative methods were sometimes used. Lastly, authors reflect in this paper on the prospects of this field of inquiry in view of the trend towards globalization of place. In conclusion, authors suggest that in this new era of local-global relations, sustainable development of the tourism industry and building harmonious linkages between tourists, residents, and immigration processes are required to promote effective management and best practices in tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]