  Nationally oriented scientific-scholarly journals are considered from a
methodological-informetric viewpoint, analysing data extracted from Scimago
Journal Rank based on Scopus. An operational definition is proposed of a
journal's degree of national orientation based on the geographical distribution
of its publishing or citing authors, and the role of international
collaboration and a country's total publication output. A comprehensive
analysis is presented of trends up until 2019 in national orientation and
citation impact of national journals entering Scopus, extending outcomes in
earlier studies. A method to analyse national journals of given countries is
applied to the set of former USSR republics and Eastern and Central European
states which were under socialism, distinguishing between domestic and foreign
national journals. The possible influence is highlighted of factors related to
a journal's access status, publication language and subject field,
international scientific migration and collaboration, database coverage
policies, the size of a national research community, historical-political
factors and national research assessment and funding policies.
