Crossing the Sino-Russian boundary, Xingkai Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Northeast Asia. In addition to the lakeshore, there are four sand hills on the north side of the lake that accumulated during a period of sustainable and stable lacustrine trans gression and were preserved after depression. Analysis of well-dated stratigraphic sequences based on 18 OSL datings combined with multiple index analysis of six sites in the sand hills revealed that the north shoreline of Xingkai Lake retreated in a stepwise fashion since the middle Pleistocene, and that at least four transgressions (during 193-183 ka, 136-130 ka, 24-15 ka and since 3 ka) and three depressions occurred during this process. The results of this study confirmed that transgressive stages were concur- rent with epochs of climate cooling, whereas the period of regression corresponded to the climatic optima. Transgressions and regressions were primarily caused by variations in the intensity of alluvial accumulation in the Ussuri River Valley and fluctuations in regional temperature and humidity that were controlled by climatic change. Moreover, one obvious transgressive process that occurred in MIS3 may have been related to enhanced precipitation that was reportedly widespread in the west of China, while shortterm fluctuations in the lake level might well be a direct response to regional precipitation variations on the millennial scale. Crossing the Sino-Russian boundary, Xingkai Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Northeast Asia. In addition to the lakeshore, there are four sand hills on the north side of the lake that accumulated that a period of sustainable and stable lacustrine trans gression and were Analysis of well-dated stratigraphic sequences based on 18 OSL datings combined with multiple index analysis of six sites in the sand hills revealed that the north shoreline of Xingkai Lake retreated in a stepwise fashion since the middle Pleistocene, and that at least The results of this study confirmed that transgressive stages were concur- rent with epochs of climate cooling, while the period of regression corresponded to the climatic optima. Transgressions and tensressions were compared by the intensity of alluvial accumulation in the Ussuri River Valley and fluctuations in regional temperature and humidity that were controlled by climatic change. Moreover, one obvious transgressive process that occurred in MIS3 may have been related to enhanced precipitation that was reportedly widespread in the west of China, while shortterm fluctuations in the lake level might well be a direct response to regional precipitation variations on the millennial scale.