Abstract: Due to the superiority of high energy efficiency and environmental friendliness, shallow geothermal resources have been widely applied in recent years in China. Geological conditions, characteristics of shallow geotemperature field and thermophysical parameters of rocks and soils are important parameters for shallow geothermal resources. Based on relevant research on nationwide investigation and evaluation of shallow geothermal energy resources in 31 provincial capital cities in China, the authors evaluated the characteristics, resources and regional development planning of shallow geothermal resources in China. The results show that, in constant temperature zone, feature temperature is mostly affected by solar radiation, and the trend of buried depth is opposite to temperature change. What's more, thermal conductivity of soils and rocks is obviously influenced by lithology. The most important application of shallow geothermal resources is for heating and cooling in buildings. Over 80% of the provincial capital cities are suitable for shallow geothermal utilization and annual exploitable shallow geothermal resources of 31 provincial capital cities are equivalent to 280 million tons of standard coal, which is abundant for heating and cooling. Considering the way of utilization and the level of demand, the authors divided whole China into four types of areas, i.e., centralized utilization area (both heating and cooling), distributed utilization area (both heating and cooling), distributed utilization area only for heating and distributed utilization area only for cooling. The development and utilization of shallow geothermal resources are of great significance for promoting the development of China's green, low-carbon and energy-saving urbanization and can also solve the problem of winter smog in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and satisfy the demand of heating in winter in cities of southern China..