Digital humans play a central role in the Metaverse world. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the current status, hot topics, and trends in digital human research, we employed authoritative databases such as Web of Science as data sources, key literatures in the field of digital human research before June 2023 was retrieved through a combined search using multiple keywords. Visualization tools such as VOSviewer and CiteSpace were then employed to analyze the retrieved literatures. The findings indicate a significant increase in the number of publications related to digital humans over the past 27 years. The fields of biomedicine and entertainment media have played crucial roles as catalysts for advancements in digital human research. The current widespread popularity of digital humans is not coincidental, but rather the result of extensive multidisciplinary research, continual advancements in digital productivity, and collaborative efforts spanning various industries over an extended period of time. Throughout this historical journey, terms such as virtual human, digital human model, virtual character, and virtual reality have emerged prominently and gained considerable frequency. Furthermore, research on artificial intelligence and related fields has recently become a prominent focal point. These analysis results provide a scientific theoretical foundation and valuable references from diverse perspectives for researchers in this field.