East Dongting Lake is one of the national nature reserves in China, and an important habitat for the wintering of waterfowls in China, and even, global wetlands. To study the relationships between waterfowl community and environmental factors is of vital significance in providing useful data and necessary information for the restoration of bird habitat. In the winters of 2010 and 2011, a survey was conducted on the wintering waterfowls in East Dongting Lake wetland, and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was adopted to reveal the relationships between the distribution of dominant wintering waterfowl species and environmental factors. The partial CCA was also employed to assess the respective importance of environmental factors on the waterfowl species distribution and diversity. The factors including the distance to roads, distance to residents, patch density, number of vegetation types, water area, and sedge area had significant effects on the waterfowl distribution (P<0.05), with the affecting intensity in the order of sedge area > patch density > distance to residents > number of vegetation types > water area > distance to road. Sedge area and patch density had highly significant effects (P<0.01) on the distribution of the waterfowls, being the two major factors affecting the wintering waterfowls in the wetland, while landscape diversity index and reed area had no significant effects (P>0.05). The regression analysis showed that environmental factors had different effects on the species richness. The richness of Platalea leucorodia, Anas falcata, and Calidris alpina decreased with the increase of sedge area, while increased with the increase of patch density. However, the richness of Anserfabalis, Anser albifrons, Anser erythro- pus, and Anas crecca increased with increase of sedge area while decreased with the increase of patch density. It was suggested that the distribution of wintering waterfowls in East Dongting Lake wetland was affected by a variety of environmental factors, among which, sedge area and patch density played the most important roles.