Passive cooling strategies are solutions for the regulation of thermal comfort in buildings where mechanical ventilation is not available. There are numerous strategies such as natural ventilation, direct night cooling, controlled thermal phase-changing, evaporative cooling, and shading. The existing literature suggests the use of passive design strategies due to their ability to reduce the demand of cooling and heating loads, to construct low-energy buildings. However, in the present time passive design strategies are accepted as a ‘black box’ solution, as there is limited understanding of the available strategies and their change in effectiveness due to the climate in which they are used. In this work, different solutions for passive cooling of residential and commercial buildings are presented, accounting for different climate zones. Unique solutions such as vegetation-based walls that use the principles of evapotranspiration and solar shading effect are illustrated. More techniques such as external shading, and the use of phase change materials are compiled, analysed, and evaluated in terms of their performance at different climate zones. From the analysis, it emerges that it is necessary to choose a specific strategy considering building design itself, external environmental conditions such as climate, and the elements surrounding the building. The effectiveness of passive cooling strategies is quantifiable but unpredictable for the future. Henceforth, further studies will be necessary due to climate change effects on geographical location, and meteorological data of different regions.