Urban heat island effect is one of the hot social issues in the process of urban development. The study takes Jinan as an example and applies the improved Becker and Li “split window” algorithm to obtain remotely sensed surface temperature data based on FY－3B / VIRR data; the spatial and temporal characteristics of the urban heat island effect in Jinan City from 2013 to 2020 are quantitatively analyzed using the Urban Heat Island Intensity and the Urban Heat Island Proportion Index; from the natural and socio-economic perspectives, gray correlation analysis is used to quantitatively evaluate the contribution of the influencing factors of urban thermal environment to the variations of urban heat island effect. The results are listed as follows: 1) The improved Becker and Li “split window” algorithm is well applied in Jinan City, with a linear fit coefficient of determination R2 of 0.89 to the measured “0 cm surface temperature” data from national weather stations. 2) The interannual variation of the heat island region shows a trend of increasing and then decreasing gradually and smoothly, while the variation characteristics of the cold island region are obviously opposite to those of the heat island region. 3) The urban heat island area in summer ( 35.3% ) is the largest, followed by that in autumn ( 22.5% ) , and those in spring ( 11.5% ) and winter ( 10.6% ) are basically the same. 4) The spatial pattern of the heat island is driven by the town coalescence axis and is characterized by a “point-line” spatial structure. 5) The urban heat island proportion index shows an overall decreasing trend, with a lighter heat island in 2013 ( 0.22 ) and 2014 ( 0.24 ). 6) Total population and normalized vegetation index are the main factors affecting the urban heat island effect in Jinan. The study is of considerable referential importance in strengthening the monitoring and evaluation of the surface thermal environment in Jinan and guiding urban planning and ecological city construction.