Drought seriously affects vegetation growth and threatens food security. Vegetation condition index (VCI), temperature condition index (TCI) and vegetation health index (VHI) based on remote sensing have been widely used to monitor drought. In order to analyze spatial and temporal patterns of drought and their responses to climate and land use changes in China, this paper analyzed the temporal and spatial variations of VCI, TCI and VHI from 2003 to 2016; Least squares (OLS) and partial correlation analysis were used to analyze the responses of these indices to climate and land use changes. The drought frequency calculated using these drought indices indicated that drought occurred frequently in the central of middle temperate zone and southern temperate zone. The temporal trends of the drought indices indicated that drought was alleviated in most regions of China, but intensified in some areas such as the middle temperate zone, the southern temperate zone and the plateau climate zone during the study period. Overall, drought indices decreased with the increase of annual mean temperature and the decrease of annual precipitation. The correlations of VHI with temperature and precipitation were more consistent than VCI and TCI across different climate zones. The decrease of bare soil fraction and the increase of vegetation fraction led to the increase of drought indices. The conversion of trees to low vegetation induced the decreases of drought indices.