Abstract: Diurnal temperature range (DTR), defined as daily maximum temperature minus the daily minimum, has significantly changed under the global warming. Both observation and simulation researches have shown a decreasing trend of global DTR since the 1950s, resulted from its natural variation and human activities. Solar radiation, cloud cover, aerosols, land cover change, water vapour, precipitation and contrails, etc., can influence the DTR. Weekend effect of DTR is able to indicate anthropogenic impact on climate change, while the DTR variation caused by urbanization could be a better indicator of urbanization誷 effect on regional climate than the mean temperature variation. This study is a review of researches on DTR, including its variation, influential factors and indicator function of human activities impact on climate change.