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Background  The WRKY transcription factor family plays significant roles in biotic and abiotic stress responses, which has been associated with various biological processes in higher plants. However, very little is known regarding the structure and function of  WRKY  genes in maize.    Results  In this study, a total of 140 ZmWRKY proteins encoded by 125  ZmWRKY  genes were eventually identified in maize. On the basis of features of molecular structure and a comparison of phylogenetic relationships of WRKY transcription factor families from  Arabidopsis , rice and maize, all 140 ZmWRKY proteins in maize were divided into three main groups (Groups I, II and III) and the Group II was further classified into five subgroups. The characteristics of exon-intron structure of these putative  ZmWRKY  genes and conserved protein motifs of their encoded ZmWRKY proteins were also presented respectively, which was in accordance with the group classification results. Promoter analysis suggested that  ZmWRKY  genes shared many abiotic stress-related elements and hormone-related elements. Gene duplication analysis revealed that the segmental duplication and purifying selection might play a significant role during the evolution of the  WRKY  gene family in maize. Using RNA-seq data, transcriptome analysis indicated that most of  ZmWRKY  genes displayed differential expression patterns at different developmental stages of maize. Further, by quantitative real-time PCR analysis, twenty-one  ZmWRKY  genes were confirmed to respond to two different abiotic stress treatments, suggesting their potential roles in various abiotic stress responses. In addition, RNA-seq dataset was used to conduct weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) in order to recognize gene subsets possessing similar expression patterns and highly correlated with each other within different metabolic networks. Further, subcellular localization prediction, functional annotation and interaction analysis of ZmWRKY proteins were also performed to predict their interactions and associations involved in potential regulatory network.    Conclusions  Taken together, the present study will serve to present an important theoretical basis for further exploring function and regulatory mechanism of  ZmWRKY  genes in the growth, development, and adaptation to abiotic stresses in maize.    Supplementary Information  The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-021-03206-z.

Genome-wide identification and analysis of WRKY gene family in maize provide insights into regulatory network in response to abiotic stresses