Between 2012 and 2016, a systematic regional survey was conducted around the Xinhuang and Yueliang Lakes in northwest Jilin, Northeast China. This paper investigates the results of that fieldwork. We are especially interested in the degree to which the settlements are integrated with one another. The spatial analysis of the results shed new light on the local trajectory of settlement patterns and subsistence strategies from pre-Neolithic to the historical era, and provides data about the current and ancient environment and socio-economic changes in this region and how they differ from other nearby regions.