In order to offset the lag and delay in the heating process and solve the problem of excessive heating in the heating season, an energy-saving control method of district heating system based on MATLAB is proposed. Based on MATLAB/SIMULINK software, the simulation model of district heating system is established to study its dynamic characteristics. The short-term load forecasting method is introduced to guide the system to conduct centralized regulation and observe the dynamic response of indoor temperature and operating energy consumption. Compared with the constant water supply temperature and the outdoor temperature compensation method, the results show that the proposed method can reduce the indoor temperature fluctuation range to 20 ± 1°C, and the energy saving rate of the whole heating season can reach 14.5% compared with the conventional regulation method.