Currently, both the heated building area and total pipe length have been increased significantly. Despite the rapid development of China's heating industry, the overall efficiency of district heating systems is relatively low. In this paper, an innovative smart and transparent heating mode is proposed to solve the problems of the current heating mode. The proposed method integrates two core technologies: the 3D-GIS digital twin model and the NB-IoT wireless communication system. The concept, main characteristic of the proposed heating mode is discussed. A concrete technical scheme of the heating mode integrating the static and dynamic data of DHN is presented. To test the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed heating mode, two cases with a concrete implementation scheme are presented. The energy reduction rate, pump efficiency, and hydraulic imbalance level of proposed heating mode is compared with the traditional heating mode. Results show that the energy consumption of DHN under traditional set secondary-side supply target temperature control mode can be reduced by 26.11% compared with smart and transparent heating mode during the heating period.