Radar backscattering coefficients from synthetic aperture radars and scatterometers are commonly used to characterize the land surface properties and monitor their temporal evolution. Radar altimetry is mostly used, over land, to provide time series of water stage of lakes, rivers and wetlands and the topography of the ice sheets. Very few studies used the radar altimetry backscattering coefficients for geophysical applications except to determine changes in Arctic lakes state surface, surface soil moisture in semi-arid environments or flood extent at high latitude. As radar altimetry missions acquired data in four frequency bands (mostly C and Ku but also S and Ka), this study proposes the first thorough analysis of the backscattering signatures of land surfaces using observations from ERS-2, Jason-1, ENVISAT, Jason-2 and SARAL radar altimetry missions The spatial and temporal variations of several altimetric information (backscattering coefficient, waveform peakiness, leading edge width and trailing edge slope) are examined at global scale, for each frequency band separately, as well as for their differences. Their relationship with related variations in the surface characteristics (i.e., soil type, soil moisture, presence of water and snow) are evidenced. Finally, spatial patterns and temporal variations computed over selected regions, representative of the major bioclimatic areas, are related to their surface properties and changes.