The low-altitude economy is rapidly emerging as a focal point in China’s pursuit of highquality development. As the foundational support system, low-altitude infrastructure plays a critical role in enabling low-altitude flight activities, underscoring the importance of its spatial planning. Despite increasing attention from policymakers and researchers, there remains a lack of consensus on the conceptual scope, classification frameworks, and optimal planning methodologies for low-altitude infrastructure. A comprehensive review of relevant domestic and international research on lowaltitude infrastructure planning is conducted, aiming to identify key trends and reveal existing gaps.To build a robust analytical basis, the study conducted targeted literature searches using China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS), covering publications from January 2010 to December 2024. Keywords used in both Chinese and English included “low-altitude economy” “UAM” “AAM” “infrastructure” “vertiport” and “general aviation,” yielding a final selection of 158 Chinese-language and 66 English-language peer-reviewed papers. This core literature set was further enriched by 8 authoritative research reports and 18 regulatory documents from agencies including the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The literature analysis reveals the ambiguity regarding the definition of low-altitude infrastructure. Drawing insights from transport geography, aviation engineering, and urban studies, this study comprehensively defines low-altitude infrastructure as an integrated system of physical assets and information networks that collectively enable secure, reliable, and efficient low-altitude flight operations. Within this broad conceptualization, the most frequently referenced facility categories include landing and take-off infrastructure, air-traffic management systems, communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) equipment, and energy supply stations. Notably, overlapping terminologies across studies—such as multiple designations for charging and refueling stations— underscore the need for standardization. Further analysis identifies five prominent classification approaches in existing scholarship, including distinctions between new and legacy infrastructure, hard versus soft infrastructure, spatial positioning, facility functionality, and hierarchical network scales. Although individually insightful, these classification systems have seldom been synthesized or systematically reconciled, which may impede cumulative knowledge development and effective comparative research. Policy-oriented practices reveal clearer hierarchical categorization patterns, which are particularly instructive for practical planning applications. Comparative analysis of regulatory frameworks adopted by CAAC, FAA, NASA, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) illustrates varied yet structured multitier approaches. For example, NASA’s three-tier structure (vertihubs, vertiports, vertistops) provides differentiated guidance tailored to urban cores, suburban zones, and rural peripheries, which isparticularly instructive for application in the spatial context of Chinese cities. The literature also identifies two distinct but complementary methodological paradigms in infrastructure planning goal-driven and demand-driven approaches. Goal-driven planning employs normative policy targets—such as accessibility, regional economic equity, or emergency responsiveness—as a basis for initial expert-guided site identification, subsequently refined through quantitative modeling and simulation techniques. Conversely, demand-driven planning methods prioritize spatial data on population density, commuting patterns, logistical flows, and socioeconomic variables, employing clustering algorithms or network optimization techniques to determine infrastructure placement. Despite methodological divergences, combining these approaches may achieve a more balanced integration of strategic objectives with empirical market conditions, a synthesis seldom explored comprehensively in existing studies.