Abstract: ObjectiveAiming at the complexity of the navigation environment of the Yangtze River shipping, the high energy consumption and serious pollution of some ship types, there is an urgent need to carry out the research on green and intelligent ship types, and the knowledge graph is applied to the hull form design method to adapt to the requirements of the development of the green and intelligent technology on the optimization of the ship types. Methods The knowledge graph and inference model of Yangtze River cargo ship hull form are introduced, and a knowledge graph-based hull form design process is proposed for the first time to complete the rapid design of an excellent hull form for a 6000-ton bulk carrier of the Yangtze River and compare it with that of the ship designed by conventional methods. Results Drag reduction effect of 2.39% was obtained compared with the conventional design ship type. Conclusion The effectiveness of the knowledge graph-based hull form design method was verified.