<p>With the rapid development of urbanization, urban waterlogging disasters occurred frequently, posing a potential threat to urban safety operation. It is important to determine some key factors of urban waterlogging disaster and construct an urban waterlogging disaster chain. In this paper, 18 influencing factors of urban waterlogging disaster were firstly identified. Then, a complex network was constructed, and the corresponding key factors were analysed. Simultaneously, the hierarchy of influencing factors was divided into six levels by the interpretative structural modeling method (ISM), and subsequently the urban waterlogging disaster chain was determined. Finally, this disaster chain was verified based on the “7·20” heavy rainstorm disaster in Zhengzhou and “5·22” heavy rainfall disaster in Guangzhou. In the complex network analysis, the poor drainage was the most important factor of urban waterlogging disaster because of the highest total degree and input degree. Meanwhile, the irrational urban planning and a lack of disaster risk awareness and preparedness on relevant departments played an important role on urban waterlogging disaster due to the highest output degree. The low terrain and the poor flood control and drainage management system had the highest clustering coefficients, which signified the robust interlinkages between these nodes and their adjacent counterparts. Furthermore, the poor drainage, heavy rainfall, and the heat island effect had the highest betweenness centrality scores, showing that it was easy to cause urban waterlogging disaster by these factors. By case verification, disaster chain was in line with the real situation. Based on the analysis and disaster chain, some countermeasures were proposed to prevent disasters.</p>