Abstract: Thermal infrared image from Landsat satellites was used to derive land surface temperatures（LST） and to calculate the intensity of surface urban heat island（UHI）and normalized difference vegetation index from 2003 to 2013 in Dongguan urban（Guangdong Province）. The results showed that the obvious regional distribution of urban heat island effect in Dongguan urban was relatively dispersed while the other temperature regions are distributed more concentrated. The thermal landscape in Dongguan urban was medium green island in 2003 while in 2013 the weak green island was most obviously，the whole state of UHI presented easing trend. Since the ten years，the southern，the east and west part of Dongguan urban vegetation cover was much，while the central and northern vegetation cover was little. The vegetation coverage raised up but not much，the rate of vegetation coverage in 2013 increased by 1.35% than 2003，the rate of vegetation coverage in study area was 44.70% in 2013，the low temperature area occured in the higher vegetation index place，and NDVI could reflect the urban heat island effect state.