A robotic cleaning apparatus for performing a cleaning operation and a method of cleaning a cleaning space therefor are provided. The method includes acquiring contamination data indicating a contamination level of the cleaning space, acquiring contamination map data based on the contamination data, determining at least one cleaning target area in the cleaning space, based on a current time and the contamination map data, and cleaning the determined at least one cleaning target area. The method and apparatus may relate to artificial intelligence (AI) systems for mimicking functions of human brains, e.g., cognition and decision, by using a machine learning algorithm such as deep learning, and applications thereof.