Thermochronology has made increasing methodological progress in recent years and has been applied to a wide range of fields, in particular the elucidation of the thermal history of the shallow crust, e.g. mountain building, fault activity, and surface processes. The main methodologies include fission-track, Ar–Ar, U–Th/He, U–Pb, and trapped-charge dating, and the field covered by thermochronology is becoming increasingly broad in terms of time, space, and temperature. This special issue focuses on the latest results in the field of thermochronology, covering a wide range of basic and applied research related to thermochronology.