Adaptive comfort standards have become the main stream comfort research and are now considered an optional choice of natural ventilated buildings in the international thermal comfort standards. However, the international adaptive models were not suitable to evaluate the thermal adaptation level of all the climates. To explore thermal adaptive ability and develop thermal comfort models in different climate zones, field studies on thermal comfort in 120 residential buildings in summer and winter have been conducted in 12 cities, representative of four climate zones in eastern China. Those data were gathered using instantaneous subjective questionnaire surveys and objective on-site measurements. The results showed that the predicted neutral temperatures based on MTS in winter in four climate zones were all lower than the predicted neutral temperatures based on PMV, and vice versa in summer. The clothing was mainly affected by the indoor temperature in the severe cold climate; however, it was affected by the outdoor temperature in the warmer climates. Clothing adjustment was more obvious in the warmer climate than in the colder climate. The warmer the climate, the smaller the yearly temperature difference, and the higher a sensitivity of the neutral temperature to outdoor temperature. The adaptive models in the hot summer and cold winter zone (HSCW) and hot summer and warmer winter zone (HSWW) can be used to predict the comfort temperatures of the natural ventilated buildings in the above two climate zones. Different climate zones should develop their own thermal adaptive models. These findings provide support to the climate adaptation theory and can serve as reference for the design of natural ventilated buildings. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.