To examine the worldwide progress of green building and identify the areas of research focus and emerging trends over the last ten years, employed CiteSpace software to quantitatively analyze a selection of literature on green building from 2013 to 2023 in the WOS core collection. The key journals, major institutions and countries involved in the study were sorted out, and the research topics of literature high citation analysis were carried out. The research hotspots and frontiers were obtained through keyword co-occurrence, clustering, emergence and timeline analysis: 1) consumption, strategy, thermal performance, emissions are four words of the highest centrality; 2) The five major research topics are new building materials, sustainable development, green innovation, environmental impact, and building information model; 3) The combination of green building and intelligent building is the development trend; 4) Three frontier research directions are green finance, energy simulation and geopolymer concrete. Based on the above analysis, it can be concluded that: 1) Promote the further integration with BIM technology; 2) Sustainable development is still a hot topic; 3) Focus on the exploration of green building materials; 4) AI green buildings will become a trend.