Flow and temperature field in reactors are important factors for design of thermal chemical vapor deposition system to grow carbon nanotubes. In this study, effects of the variations of the inlet and outlet areas of the CVD reactor to the flow characteristics and temperature field are numerically analyzed. High temperature of the gas in the entrance region is obtained with slow gas speed resulted from the enlarged inlet area. Variation of the exit area has little effects on the flow field and temperature in the reactor. However the largest area among considered cases gives the highest gas temperature though the differences are small.