Shale gas is an important unconventional natural gas. This paper classified shale into three types, which are marine, marine-continental transitional and continental facies shales, and summarized strata, distributions and reservoir features of the three kinds of shales. Marine face shale usually occurs in large scale and great thickness, and has widespread distributions; transitional face shale has the characteristics of thin layers, large multiple thickness and frequent interbedding, while the distribution of terrestrial face shale is relative narrow. Different shale reservoirs have similarities in gas compositions, occurrence states, gas origins. But they also differ in thickness, distributions and rock associations, etc., because of different sedimentary environments. Comparing reservoir characteristics of Chinese and American shale, organic matter abundance, maturity and types control the gas generation; mineral compositions and structures, organic matter maturity and types, pore and fracture structures, gas occurrence and migration characteristics, burial depth, and effective thickness control the shale gas accumulation.