In this study, the temporal variations of anthropogenic heat (AH) flux in China from 1985 to 2018 were studied by using the province depended non-renewable energy consumption and pullulation data from Chinese Statistical Yearbook. Based on the gridding population data and emission inventory of CO, the spatial distributions of AH fluxes over China were further investigated. According to the data of non-renewable energy consumption from different categories, the AH fluxes emitted from the industry sector, buildings, vehicles and human metabolism were respectively estimated. The results show that the AH flux in China has been increased continually since 1980s. The increase is more obvious in the period after 2000, but slows down during 2012 to 2016. In 2016, the national average AH flux in China is 0.442W/m², with the values for the industry sector, buildings, vehicles and human metabolism being 0.31, 0.072, 0.038, and 0.020W/m², respectively. For the spatial distribution, the AH flux values are obviously higher in eastern China than western China. Higher values usually occur in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations. Some important megacities in other regions of China also have higher values. Moreover, the spatial distributions of AH fluxes from the industry sector are similar to those of economy activities and urbanization. For the AH fluxes emitted from vehicles, more of them are concentrated in the transport hub cities. Compared with other existing inventories of AH fluxes in China, the outputs of this study show higher AH fluxes in big cities, which better illustrates the significant effects of human activities on the emissions of AH.