 The surface urban heat island, SUHI, is caused by differences in land surface temperatures, LST, in urban areas compared to those in surrounding non-urban areas. Satellite data has been used to measure this difference, and there has been an exponential increase in the number and quality of SUHI studies over the past few decades. These studies have focused primarily on China and summer days, and have used Landsat thematic mapper, TM, slash enhanced thematic mapper, ETM plus, slash thermal infrared sensor, TERS, and Terra slash Aqua moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer, MODIS, satellites. The majority of these studies have focused on local scales, and have found that SUHI is caused by a combination of factors including impervious surface area, vegetation cover, landscape structure, albedo, and climate. Despite the progress made in understanding SUHI, many challenges remain, including data and methodological limitations. Future efforts should focus on improving the quality and quantity of LST data, exploring understudied regions slash cities, developing methods to examine SUHI intensity, inter-annual variability, and long-term trends of SUHI. This article was authored by Dijing Zhou, Jing Feng Shao, Stefania Bonifony, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.