To provide an ink jet printing apparatus and ink jet printing method capable of printing at high speed and high image quality in accordance with the distance between the head and the paper. In performing a first print mode for printing to a unit region of the print medium by making the print head scan N times (N: positive integer), and executing a second print mode for printing to the unit region of the print medium by making the print head scan M times (M: positive integer, M>N), the distance between the print head and the print medium (distance between the head and the paper) in the first print mode is made shorter than that in the second print mode.