Abstract: The optimization of lakeside villages is an important aspect of the coordination between protection and development of land spaces in the basins of big lakes. Taking the first-level protection area of the Chaohu Lake Basin as the study area and on the basis of geospatial analysis technology, the study comprehensively used the data including the land survey, national geographical survey, high resolution land use (5 m) and topographic terrain survey to reveal the water environment capacity dominated influencing factors and external driving mechanism of villages patterns, and the optimization direction and regulation of villages patterns are proposed. The results show that the village pattern in the first-level protection area was characterized by land fragmentation, rural community hollow and decentralization. The above characteristics clarified from the viewpoint of differences in land use, population and spatial pattern. The total area of villages land is 2 598.4 hm², and the average size of patches is about 2.4 hm², and the total population is about 1.39 million. The above village pattern had a driving-constraint relationship among external factors including ecological sensitivity, disaster prevention, development agglomeration and cultural protection. The main constraints were from the ecologically sensitive areas such as the embankment area and other forest & grass areas which accounted about 29.1% of the total area. The first-level protection area actually has terrain conditions suitable for village development. There are still 50% villages located in flooded area, and 60% villages in urban fringe area with 1-kilometer buffer. Thus, four types of village pattern optimization of separating, shrinking, controlling and expanding are proposed. The results of the study provide cognitive ideas and technical support for the territory land plan in the lakeside zone in the big lake regions.