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Cities have been considered ideal surrogates for evaluating ecological responses to climate warming. Although research has revealed that the urban heat island effect is not the only determinant that drives the rural-urban difference in spring phenology, limited attempts further explore the effect of complex interactions between urbanization and climates on the start of the season (SOS). Here, we employed the percentage of impervious surface area as an indicator of urbanization levels, incorporating the urban heat island (UHI) effect and climates to decipher the multiple effects on the temporal shift in SOS. Our results suggest that urbanization, the UHI effect, and climates jointly drive the phenological timing in cities. The SOS is highly linearly correlated with urbanization levels and UHI effects (p<0.001) in the zones with warm and humid climates, whereas relatively warmer, cooler, or arid climates break down the …