Based on bibliometric theory and CiteSpace software, this paper makes a quantitative analysis of the years, periodicals, institutions and authors of metaphor research in China. Through statistical analysis of keyword co-occurrence and emergence, the paper also explores the research hotspots and research frontiers in this field. The data are collected from CNKI database from 2000 to 2015. A total of 2240 of CSSCI documents are collected. The study finds that metaphor research in China is developing rapidly and the number of published articles is increasing constantly; the journals of metaphor research are scattered, and more articles are published in foreign language journals; the research force is mainly concentrated in universities; the scholars such as Wang Yin, Sun Yi, Guo Guichun have published many articles, and they have great academic influence. However, the core author group has not yet formed in this field. We need to further strengthen cooperation, expand fields and deepen research in order to achieve breakthroughs. Metaphor studies have begun to diversify. Research direction mainly focuses on conceptual metaphor, grammatical metaphor, scientific metaphor and other three aspects. Meanwhile, it is found that the research frontier hotspots have gradually tilted to metaphorical competence, multimodal metaphor and cultural metaphor.