Introduction: There has been an increase in the volume of scientific literature over the last decade in the field of hand surgery. The purpose of this bibliometric analysis was to ascertain the articles that have significantly contributed to advancements in hand surgery. Methods: The Web of Science database was used to produce a list of the 100 most cited articles from February 2012 to February 2022. The full text of all articles was carefully examined for further descriptive analysis not limited to subject matter, journal of publication, authorship, institution, country and year of publication. Results: The 100 most cited articles were cited on average 75 times. The most cited article was cited 179 times. Subject matter was not limited to pain management, distal radius fractures and tendon injuries. Source journals were spread across 36 journals, but six prominent journals published 60 per cent of articles. Conclusion: While the measurement of scientific merit is not solely based on bibliometric analysis, this study provides a good representation of substantial work in the last decade.