An analytical study was performed to have temperature and thermal stress distribution on a piston with the change of the 2nd land length of a piston and the existence of knocking in a cylinder. The result showed that the temperature on the skirt region was about $4sim10^{circ}C$ higher than that on the pin region. However the thermal stress on the skirt region was about 4MPa lower than on the pin region. It may be due to the higher heat release rate on the pin boss than on the skirt. The result regarding the variation of the 2nd land length of the piston showed that the temperature distribution on the piston was getting lower and the thermal stress distribution was getting higher as the 2nd land length of the piston was shorter.