The urban cooling island (UCI) effect is put forward in comparison with the urban heat island effect, and emphasizes on landscape planning for optimization of function and way of urban thermal environment. In this paper, we summarized current research of the UCI effects of waters, green space, and urban park from the perspective of patch area, landscape index, threshold value, landscape pattern and correlation analyses. Great controversy was found on which of the two factors patch area and shape index has a more significant impact, the quantification of UCI threshold is particularly lacking, and attention was paid too much on the UCI effect of landscape composition but little on that of landscape configuration. More attention should be paid on shape, width and location for water landscape, and on the type of green space, green area, configuration and management for green space landscape. The altitude of urban park and human activities could also influence UCI effect. In the future, the threshold determination should dominate the research of UCI effect, the reasons of controversy should be further explored, the study of time sequence should be strengthened, the UCI effects from landscape pattern and landscape configuration should be identified, and more attention should be paid to spatial scale and resolution for the precision and accuracy of the UCI results. Also, synthesizing the multidisciplinary research should be taken into consideration.