The impact of urban compactness, comfort strategies and energy consumption on tropical urban heat island intensity: a review

•Although studies on tropical UHIs remain numerically inferior to temperate UHI studies, there appears to be a considerably rich and diverse knowledge base built upon in the recent past.•While the effect of greenery is important in lowering a tropical UHI, the cooling effect is modulated by wetness.•The lack of standardisation on the characterisation of parameters pose problems in deciphering the overall effect of compactness on tropical UHIs.•Relationship between energy and UHI in tropics, especially in the residential sector is not very well captured.•Local Climate Zone’ (LCZ) is a promising approach for the classification of measurement locations by their key micro-climate influencing features.