The purposes of this paper are to analyse energy consumption characteristics and to find out influence factors of residential energy consumption in summer in typical cities of China. The investigated residences were located in seven cities of five architecture thermotechnical design zones. Questionnaire surveys revealed housing unit characteristics, household characteristics, the possession and utilization of domestic energy consuming appliances and indoor thermal environment in summer. Energy consumption analyses show that summer energy consumption amounts in different cities bear distinct regional characteristics: the household amounts of electricity use are largest in Hongkong, and the values are smaller but still at a high level in Beijing, Shanghai and Changsha, and at the smallest level in Kunming, Harbin and Urumqi, while the difference in gas use is small among these cities. Influence factor analyses show that city locations, housing unit characteristics, the utilization of space coolers and water heaters, household characteristics, and subjective evaluation of indoor thermal environment all contribute to the residential energy consumption in summer when taking all the families in the seven cities as the sample collectivity, while detail analyses for separate cities shows each city has its own characteristics. In Shanghai, the satisfaction rate of thermal environment, the possession and operation of air conditioners and housing unit characteristics greatly affect the summer energy consumption, but the electrical fan is judged as the non-influence factor, while in Urumqi, the possession and operation of electrical fans and the categories of water heaters have remarkable effect, and the influence of housing unit characteristics is also distinct, but the number of air conditioners and their usage contribute little to energy use due to the cool climate. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.