The changing trend of surface air temperature is a critical issue in studies of climate change detection and attribution. Due to the large urbanization effect， however， the current dataset of surface air temperature of many national meteorological stations can hardly meet the demands of climate change researches. Based on the station information from all the meteorological stations of China， the quality of the surface air temperature data is evaluated， and the reference surface stations are selected for the studies of urbanization effect and regional climate change detection.The principles and methodology for selecting the reference stations are discussed. A total of 138 stations across the country have been finally chosen as the reference surface air temperature stations.The data from these stations can represent best the baseline change in surface air temperature in China，and can be used for evaluating the urbanization effects on surface air temperature change of national stations. They can also be used directly for detecting the surface air temperature change in China.