Based on isothermal thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and kinetic equations, the optimization toolbox of MATLAB was applied to study the effects of particle size and heating rate on the pyrolysis characteristics and kinetics and to obtain the mechanism function and kinetic parameters of Yuanbaoshan coal at four different particle sizes and heating rates. The pyrolysis characteristics of he samples were analyzed using thermogravimetric (TG) curves and differential thermogravimetric (DTG) curves. The results show that the coal pyrolysis process is strongly affected by heating rate and particle size. As the heating rate increases, the temperature of volatile matter initiation increases, the total volatile matter evolved decreases and the DTG peak shifts toward higher emperature. As the particle size decreases, the temperature of volatile matter initiation of the coal sample decreases and the maximum rate of mass loss increases. In the pyrolysis of coal, the activation energies of the samples were found to increase with growing particle size and decreasing heating rate for both of the devolatilization temperature stages. In the lower temperature stage, the coal samples show a great difference in mechanism function at different particle sizes and heating rates.