Knee osteoarthritis is a common clinical disease and frequently-occurring disease.To provide relevant medication guidance for clinical treatment of knee osteoarthritis by external treatment by collecting prescriptions and medications for clinical treatment of knee osteoarthritis by external treatment,using data mining methods to analyze the medication rules.Methods:Journals published on CNKI,WanFang,and VIP database from January 2011 to March 2020 on the treatment of knee osteoarthritis with Chinese medicine fumigation and washing and has a significant therapeutic effect were searched.Chinese medicine's taste,meridian,efficacy and high frequency of medication were summarized.Data analysis software Excel,IBM SPSS Modeler 14.1 and SPSS Statistics 21.0 were used to analyze drug association rules and cluster analysis.Results:A total of 54 foreign prescriptions were involved in the included literature,with a total of 21 flavors with a single Chinese medicine used frequency ≥10.The core drugs included Carthami flos,Chuanxiong rhizoma,Olibanum,Myrrha,Aconiti Radix,Aconiti kusnezoffii Radix,Angelicae sinensis Radix,Lycopodii herba,TouGucao,etc.They were mainly activating blood to remove blood stasis and analgesics and anti-rheumatic drugs,mainly based on the medicines with spicy,bitter,warm and mild drugs; meridian was mainly based on liver,spleen,heart and kidney.Conclusion:In the treatment of knee osteoarthritis with external treatment of Chinese medicine,it should be based on pungent and warm medicine,the liver,spleen,heart and kidney should be treated at the same time.We emphasized the combination of dispelling rheumatism,relieving pain,and promoting blood circulation to relieve the related clinical symptoms of knee osteoarthritis patients and improve the quality of life of patients.