Abstract: In order to understand the community structure and influencing factors of metazooplankton in Dongting Lake, evaluate the water ecological environment quality of Dongting Lake, and provide a certain scientific basis for supporting the assessment of water ecology in the Yangtze River Basin. We conducted three surveys of metazooplankton in 16 sections of Dongting Lake, respectively in March (dry season), June (normal season) and September (wet season), and monitored 12 environmental parameters simultaneously in 2019．The results showed that the metazooplankton community belonged to 2 phyla and 26 genera, including Rotifera 9 genera, Cladocera 12 genera, Copepoda 5 genera. The average density of metazooplankton was 84.4 ind·L^-1, with Rotifera as the most dominant class (accounted for 84.3% of the total density), followed by Copepoda (13.3%) and Cladocera(2.4%). On the spatial distribution, the density of metazooplankton was highest in East Dongting lake, followed by South Dongting lake, estuary, West Dongting Lake and lakeoutlet. The dominant species of metazooplanktonin were Polyarthra vulgaris, Trichocerca pusilla, Keratella cochlearis, Bosmina sp. and Nauplius. The response of rotifers to water nutrient level was relatively significant, and the nutrient status of East Dongting Lake was significantly higher than that of other lakes. Eutrophication of Dongting Lake resulted in the miniaturization of metazooplankton community structure, metazooplankton can be used as indicators of lake water environment changes. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed Chlorophyll A, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and transparency were the key factors controlling the community structure of metazooplankton, it is consistent with the influence factors of zooplankton in most lakes in China. The shannon-Wiener diversity index and Pielou evenness index were used to evaluate the water quality of Dongting Lake, the results showed that the water quality of Dongting Lake was light pollution, it is suitable to evaluate the water ecological status of Dongting Lake by metazooplankton.