With the rapid development of urbanization, environmental issues have become increasingly prominent, and research on human settlements has become a hot topic in academia. Based on the literature about human settlements in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science databases, this study analyzed the important research areas of human settlements in China and internationally with CiteSpace software, and discussed the progress of data acquisition methods, research methods and technologies, and research perspectives. The results show that: 1) The data acquisition method has changed from traditional sampling survey and official statistics acquisition to satellite remote sensing, equipment perception, thus realizing the transformation of traditional data to network big data acquisition. 2) The research methods are becoming increasingly more advanced, focusing on the combination of questionnaire survey, new geometrics models, and GIS, and introducing advanced technologies such as Internet of Things big data and artificial intelligence to make research methods more diverse and research results more accurate. 3) Social perception, rural revitalization, and mimicry of human habitat have become the research directions in recent years. In the future, the study of human settlements should make comprehensive use of the data acquired by traditional methods and modern technological means, learn and mine big data at much greater depth, and strengthen the study of rural revitalization and virtual human settlements.