The Urban heat island （UHI） effect has been increasing so prominently that the measures for quantitative monitoring, analysis and evaluation of the UHI effect have become one of the most important fields in current urban climate and environment researches. This paper deals systematically with data sources, methods and results of applying remote sensing to the study of urban heat island,  and gives a detailed review of researches on UHI conducted by experts all over the world in such aspects as its thermal pattern, process change regularity and causes. On such a basis, the paper predicts the development trend of applying remote sensing to studying urban heat island in future.