In orderto have a better understanding of the relationship between residential development and urban thermal environment, three typical residential districts in the downtown area of Shenzhen including high-density city village, multi-storey residential district and high-rise residential district were investigated in this study.The characteristics of land surface temperature (LST) in residential district and its relationship to the parameters of residential development were also quantitatively analyzed using Landsat5 TM and construction census data. The results showed that the heat island effects were observed in these residential districts.The average heat island intensities for high-density city village, multi-storey residential district and high-rise residential district were 3.53 ℃, 2.62 ℃ and 1.60 ℃, respectively. The LST in residential districts was positively correlated with building density, but negatively correlated with surface humidity, vegetation coverage, building average height, building mean nearest neighbor distance and plot ratio. Additionally, the multiple linear stepwise regression analysis indicated that surface humidity and building average height were the major factors for the variations of LST in the residential districts. Au these results will provide valuable information for the quantitative evaluation and optimization of thermal environment in urban residential districts.