In this paper, we study the bifurcations and exact traveling wave solutions of the celebrated Green–Naghdi equations by using the qualitative theory of differential equations and the bifurcation theory of dynamical systems. We obtain all possible phase portraits of bifurcations of the system under various conditions about the parameters associated with the planar dynamical system. Then we show the existence of traveling wave solutions including solitary wave solutions, blow-up solutions, periodic wave solutions and periodic blow-up solutions, and give their exact explicit expressions. These results can help to understand the dynamical behavior of the traveling wave solutions of the system.