Nano and micro ZnO rods and arrays have been synthesized by a simple thermal evaporation approach on a cylindrical shape substrate. Most of the synthesized ZnO products are single crystalline with a hexagonal structure and grow along the [0001] direction. Individual protrusive ZnO rods and well-aligned arrays are two typical products in our work. The individual protrusive ZnO rods have diameters of 25 nm similar to 2.1 mu m and lengths from several hundred nanometers to 40 mu m, while in the well-aligned arrays, the diameter and length of each ZnO rod range from 60 nm to 1.2 mu m and from 4 mu m to 6 mu m, respectively. The heating temperature and deposition position are two key points to control the diameters of the rods. The growth mechanism is discussed and proposed. The perfect crystalline ZnO rods with different scales from nanometer to micrometer are good models for the investigation of the size effect of physical and chemical properties of one-dimensional material.