Urban heat island (UHI) has significantly temporal and spatial differences because of the impacts of regional climate background, and large-scale comparative studies are still lacking. Using the monthly average meteorological data from 1991 to 2019, we quantified the air UHI intensity of 69 typical cities in China, and the spatial and temporal characteristics of UHI were analyzed from five climatic zones, namely Equatorial climate, Arid climate, Warm temperate climate, Snow climate and Polar climate. The results show that: (1) Regional differences: the UHI in the Arid climate is significantly higher than that in other climatic zones, and the Polar climate is the weakest, even showing stronger urban cold island (UCI). The UHI in the Equatorial climate, Warm temperate climate, Snow climate are weaker, among of them, which is more obvious in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region because of the high degree of urbanization in snow climate, and more obvious in the southwest in Warm temperate climate. (2) Seasonal differences: the strong and weak relations of UHI in different seasons vary with different climatic zones. However, nationwide, the UHI of all cities are relatively stable in autumn, both the UHI and UCI are mainly in the range of weak intensity. In spring and winter, the UHI is relatively fluctuant, prone to extreme phenomena such as strong UHI and strong UCI. The incidence of summer UHI is the highest, but its intensity is relatively weaker.(3) Time evolution: the variations of UHI in all seasons show a significantly uniform trend year by year in each climatic zone. Around 2010 is the inflection point of the UHI in all climate zones in all seasons. After 2010, the UHI has decreased in Arid climate, Warm temperate climate, Snow climate, while that in Equatorial climate and Polar climate has increased.