Abstract: Abstract: Large temperature variations and non-uniformity of air distribution are founded in the poultry houses by using tunnel ventilation and evaporative cooling systems. Poultry suffer from large variations of temperatures, cold stress near the evaporative cooling pads region and heat stress near fans region. These adverse factors negatively influence poultry health, production performance, mortality rate, and consequently resulting in significant economic losses. In order to improve the welfare of the poultry and mitigate the large variations of air temperatures, heat stress in the poultry occupied zones. The poultry houses were equipped with a new ventilation system-vertical walls intake air and gable exhaust air ventilation system in China Northwest region. The evaporative cooling pads separately and uniformly on both vertical walls and exhausting air through fans located on the gable. When the indoor air temperature was higher than the set-point, the fans created a slightly negative pressure to draw fresh air through the evaporative cooling pad into the poultry houses. This was in contrast to other time in poultry houses which have fresh air directly entering into the poultry houses without cooling through the wall inlets. In order to determine the environmental condition of the poultry house that was equipped with the new ventilation system and its existing problems, this study had been conducted to detect and analyze the thermal environment. The performance of the new ventilation system in an experimental poultry house was evaluated in comparison with the tunnel ventilation and evaporative cooling systems in control poultry house by measuring the thermal environment. Results showed that the maximum air temperature fluctuation in the experimental poultry house and in control poultry house was 2.7 and 10.3 ℃, respectively. The air temperature and relative humidity difference were not significantly different (P>0.05) along the horizontal and vertical direction in the experimental poultry house, and the air temperatures and relative humidity difference were significantly different (P<0.05) along the horizontal and vertical direction in control poultry house. The heat stress degree in control poultry house was larger than that in the experimental poultry house, and the normal level of no heat stress in the control poultry house was lower by 9.9% compared with in the experimental poultry house, alert level was higher by 2.7%, danger level was higher by 7.2% and emergency level was higher by 0.1%. There was no emergency heat stress in experiment poultry house but the control poultry house was suffered from different degrees of heat stress. The economic cost of using the new ventilation system-sidewall intake air and gable exhaust air ventilation system in the experimental poultry house is 1.6 times the cost of the traditional tunnel ventilation cooling system in control poultry house. Comprehensive evaluation, the new ventilation system can mitigate the large variations of air temperatures, heat stress in the poultry occupied zones in China Northwest region poultry houses. Thus, this new ventilation system of the poultry house is suitable to be promoted and applied in China Northwest region and it is necessary to equipped with evaporative cooling pads in gable wall of the opposite side of the fans. The study expectation was to develop a guideline on ventilation and cooling systems design and automation control for poultry houses under continental climate zones.