Big data techniques can rapidly process and mine value from mass data compared to traditional data analysis methods in many domains, such as finance and energy industry.Before we ascertain the prospect of big data techniques in civil engineering, the status quo of big data techniques that are used in civil engineering should be investigated.Articles related to big data and civil engineering are analyzed after being searched in the major literature databases including Web of Science, Engineering Village and China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, and the status quo of big data technique application in civil engineering and the trends are analyzed.This paper facilitates the future research on the application of big data techniques in civil engineering.