ZnO nanostructures were synthesized by hydrothermal method at different temperatures and growth times. The effect of increasing the temperature on structural and optical properties of ZnO were analyzed and discussed. The prepared ZnO nanostructures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis. absorption spectroscopy (UV–Vis.), Photoluminescence (PL), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In this work, hexagonal crystal structure prepared ZnO nanostructures was observed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the average crystallite size equal 14.7 and 23.8 nm for samples synthesized at growth time 7 and 8 hours respectively. A nanotubes-shaped surface morphology was found using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The optical properties showed that the samples had good absorbance in the UV-Vis. region and wide band gap. The PL spectrum displayed that the intensity of ultraviolet (UV), band gap and defect bands depend on the growth temperature of the ZnO nanostructure. The largest band gap was 3.351 eV for ZnO nanostructure synthesized at 100 °C and growth time 8h.