Inland lakes are major surface water resource in arid regions of Central Asia, the area changes of these lakes were the results of climate changes and human activities.The paper aimed to discuss lake area changes and their mechanism with three different types of inland lakes in Central Asia.Firstly, four time period Landsat MSS/TM/ETM⁺ imagery were used to delineate water boundary information based on NDWl(Normalized Difference Water Index) threshold segmentation method, then lake area variations were analyzed from 1975 to 2007 and the mechanism of these changes were discussed with meteorological data and irrigation data.The results indicated that total surface area of the nine lakes had decreased continuously from 91402.06km² to 46049.23km² during 1975-2007.The tail-end lakes in plain regions had shrunk dramatically as they were influenced by both climate changes and human activities.Due to the mild climate variations, the areas alpine lakes remained relatively stable.Under varied human utilities of outflow river water resources, the area changed of opened lakes were much more explicated than those of the other two types.With the climate warming in Central Asia, the area changes of different types of inland lakes reflected that increased anthropogenic disturbances in arid regions had broken the balance of water resource in Central Asia.