Abstract The reduction of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) has a significant impact on the sustainable development of the construction industry. Differentiated reduction management policy is the key to C&DW reduction management. Based on the calculation of C&DW generation, this paper studies the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics, heterogeneity of C&DW with economic growth, and driving factors of C&DW generation in 30 provinces from 2007 to 2018 by using the methods of standard deviation ellipse model, environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and geographic detector. The results show that the C&DW generation in China shows an increasing trend, “low in the west, and high in the East” and “high in the South and low in the north,” with significant regional differences. The temporal and spatial distribution of C&DW generation shows a “northeast southwest” trend, and this pattern has a trend of changing to “due north - due south”; C&DW generation increases with the economic growth, and the proportion of “inverted N” provinces is large, which is in the stage of continuous increase in the C&DW generation; The economic output effect of construction industry is the most important factor affecting the spatial distribution of C&DW generation. The impact of C&DW generation in each province has shifted from the single core driving effect of economy to the common guidance of economy and environmental protection. The interaction of different factors has a greater impact on the spatial distribution of C&DW generation than that of each factor alone.