With the background of global change, wetland has great sensitivity and vulnerability. In order to investigate the dynamics of the spatial characteristics and heterogeneity of natural and human- made wetlands in Northeast China, the ecosystem pattern of six important wetland regions in the study area in 1990, 2000 and 2013 were rebuilt based on satellite images of Landsat TM, ETM +, OLI and Chinese HJ. Results indicated that the area of wetlands in Northeast China in 1990, 2000 and 2013 was 11.75 * 10~4, 10.57 * 10~4 and 10.41 * 10~4 km~2, respectively. The distribution of wetlands had obvious regional features. There are more natural wetlands in the Greater Khingan Mountains wetland region, while there are more human-made wetlands in the Liaohe Delta wetland region. Notable loss of wetlands was observed in Northeast China during 1990-2013 (11.4% of wetland, 14.3% of natural wetland). Most of the disappeared wetlands were converted to croplands. The most significant decrease of wetland area was observed in the Sanjiang Plain with a loss of 9 935.2 km~2 for natural wetlands, however significant increase of human-made wetland area was observed in the Songnen Plain, with an increase of 1 141.9 km~2. There were clearly spatial differences in the impacts of climatic and human factors on the wetlands. Based on the changing trends of wetland, climate and human factors, human activities were the leading driving force for the losses of wetlands.