Abstract: Emergency shelters is one of the important research objects in urban risk and public safety. Based on 2472 literatures related to emergency shelters which are retrieved from the Web of Science core database in the past 30 years, Firstly, statistical the time and journals distribution, and then the Citespace visualization software is used to analyze from author,institution,country,keyword and discipline. As a result, In the past 30 years, emergency evacuation has been get through three stages: slowly explored、steady development and high-speed development; The study group is more and academic exchanges are closer; United States and China are the countries with the largest number of literatures; Louisiana State University and University of Science and Technology of China are main research institutions; The main issues are including natural disaster, emergency medicine, engineering technology; From the key words perspective, the target occupants of emergency shelters mainly focus on disaster relief and socially disadvantaged groups, the research perspective has evolved from a single problem and event to an integrated system, research methods have shifted from qualitative methodological models to dynamic mechanisms and information system development, In terms of research content, it pays attention to multidisciplinary and micro-scales, emphasizing case studies and information sharing, and emphasizing the management of emergency shelters; The disciplines are mainly engineering and public environment and health. In the context of building a resilient city, it is of great significance to use international experience to build a research and management system for emergency evacuation sites in China.