With the vigorous development of artificial intelligence, knowledge-based engineering (KBE), as an engineering technology discipline that studies the intelligent processing of knowledge, has gradually become a research hotspot, and KBE-based ship design method have also received increasing attention. This article systematically summarizes and analyzes the application and development of KBE in the field of ship design in three aspects: overall conceptual ship design, hull structure design, and ship layout design. It also introduces two typical cases of the KBE application in ship hull form design and shipyard-institute collaborative design. Meanwhile, it summarizes and refines the main problems and constraints in the KBE application, and looks forward to the promotion of KBE development by large language model (LLM) technology. Through KBE technology, ship design can be intelligentized, relevant specifications and requirements can be quickly invoked, and the existing ship design knowledge that has been fully proven through practice can be stored and derived, thereby improving design efficiency and shortening the design cycle. However, the full application of KBE techniques still faces numerous challenges and requires further exploration and improvement.