###### Abstract  
The development of green residences is crucial to reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions of the construction industry. However, the study on the spatial distribution characteristics of green residences and its influencing factors has not attracted enough attention in the academic circles. Base on the panel database on the number of each star green residences and their driving factors at the municipal level from 2008 to 2016, this paper employed the Weighted Standard Deviational Ellipse model to reveal the spatial and temporal evolution features of green residences in China, creatively introduced an improved Gini coefficient (G\({}^{\prime}\)-score) to measure the green residences development in each city, and utilized the panel Tobit model and average marginal effect to identify the driving mechanisms and key factors of green residences from economy, society, the real estate market, policy and climate. The main conclusions show that: (1) China has formed a relatively stable and clear temporal and spatial evolution path since 2011, such as the center of gravity and coverage having moved to the west, and the direction of development trend having weakened; (2) China's green residence is mainly distributed in the central and eastern regions, and the main direction layout is northeast-southwest; (3) the development of green residences is the result of the interaction of various factors, and the driving force of each factor varies greatly under the single action and the interaction; (4) the driving effects of the same factor on green residences with different star ratings are inconsistent in sign, magnitude, and significance, the same as for each factor under the same star rating.  
green residence; spatial and temporal evolution; standard deviational ellipse; driving factors; panel Tobit model +
Footnote †: journal: Applied  
Green building is an important aspect of the urban sustainability movement in China and has been put into practice in multiple cities in the past decade [9]. However, the geographic distribution of the existing green buildings is uneven, and their certification grades have mainly low and medium star ratings [10]. For example, differences in economic and market factors among cities in China have resulted in spatial heterogeneity and star rating differences in the distribution of green buildings [11], and green building in China is diffusing from economically developed or high administrative level regions to low-level regions [12]. The development of green buildings is a complex issue in which local policies, economy, society, real estate, and climate conditions play critical roles and are interrelated. Additionally, green residence is an important branch of green building, and its certified area accounted for 61.19% of all green buildings at the end of September 2016. However, there are few studies on the temporal and spatial evolution of green residences and its driving factors in academia. To fill this gap, this paper provides an empirical analysis, and aimed to further research on the spatial patterns of the development of green residences with different star ratings in China, in order to fully reveal the spatial and temporal evolution law of green residence as far as possible, analyze its forming reasons in depth, and provide a solid empirical basis for the research of government green housing policy and the formulation of real estate enterprise development strategy in the future.  
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature. Section 3 introduces the ranges, objects and methods used in this empirical study in detail. Section 4 studies the spatial and temporal evolution features of green residences in China by using the standard deviation ellipse model, and Section 5 mainly establishes a panel Tobit model to analyze the driving mechanism and key factors of green residences. Finally, Section 6 presents the conclusion.