Lake evaporation is one of the key links between the hydrological cycle and energy balance, and plays a crucial role in understanding the mechanism of lake-atmosphere interactions. However, due to different morphological characteristics, geographical location and climatic background, the evaporation characteristics of each lake are different on different time scales. There are complex physical driving processes, time-scale dependent feedbacks and spatial heterogeneity of lake evaporation. Therefore, the accurate measurement and quantification of lake evaporation is still an important task in limnology, hydrology and meteorology. Here, we first review the main observational methods of lake evaporation and its variability characteristics on diurnal, seasonal, interannual and interdecadal time scales. Then, the effects of meteorological factors on different time scales, lake morphometry (e.g. surface area, water depth, etc.) and geographical factors (e.g. latitude, altitude, etc.) on lake evaporation are discussed. Finally, the progress of lake evaporation research since the application of high-precision instruments such as the eddy covariance system was summarised.