Abstract: Dried-up of the Lop Nur Lake is an important event of environmental change in the arid zone of Central Asia, but scientists have not reached an agreement on the latest driedup time since the lake was submerged in 1921. After defining some relevant concepts and limiting the spatiotemporal range of the study object, in this paper the defects and doubts of present main viewpoints were analyzed one by one, and the change process and trend of the Lop Nur Lake surface as well as its water sources since the 1930s were also analyzed through comparing the relevant bibliography and re-interpreting the remote sensing images. Results indicated that the latest submergence of the Lop Nur Lake occurred in 1962, so the latest driedup of the lake maybe occurred in winter that year or not later than next summer. Climate was so arid in the study area that the lake changed frequently between expansion and shrinkage since the 1930s. Human activities including farming and damming resulted in the final driedup of the lake.

Key words: Lop Nur Lake, latest dried-up time, remote sensing image, environmental change