In recent years, with rapid urbanization, the underlying urban surface has changed dramatically. Various urban eco-environmental problems have emerged globally, among which the urban heat island effect has become one of the most obvious urban eco-environmental problems. In this study, Nanjing, China, was chosen as the study area. Based on Landsat 8 remote sensing image data collected in Nanjing from 2014 to 2018, land surface temperatures were retrieved, the spatiotemporal variation track and characteristics of the thermal environment pattern were systematically depicted, and the driving factors of these variations were revealed. The results show that over the past five years, the spatial pattern of the heat field in Nanjing changed from a scattered distribution in the periphery of the city to a centralized distribution in the centre of the city, and the heat island intensity increased annually. Changes in administrative divisions, changes in the layout of the transportation trunk lines, transfer of industrial centres, and ecological construction projects are important driving factors for the evolution of the land surface thermal environment patterns of these regions. These research results will provide scientific and technological support for similar cities with typical heat island effects elsewhere in the world to formulate urban development plan, and to improve the urban ecological environment.