Abstract: In the past decades, anthropogenic activities, including cofferdam, interregional water transfer and dredging, have significant influences on the dynamic change of the boundary and area for Taihu islands. This study aims to research the total area change and boundary swift of the main Taihu islands using Landsat imagery, which reveal the impact of human disturbance on Taihu islands and will provide fundamental information for the governance of Taihu lake. To achieve this goal, the authors extract the area and boundary of Taihu islands via band analysis, unsupervised classification and post-classification analysis from Landsat imagery, analyze the dynamic trend of the total area and boundary of the islands, and then evaluate the driving factors for the dynamic change of the island area and boundary based on the information of anthropogenic activities organized from pervious literature, census and other Taihu offfical reports. The results show that the total area of Xiaogongshan、Manshandao and Sanshandao islands are all on downward trend, while the decrease amplitude and inter-annual fluctuation are different. The anthropogenic driving factors are summarized as dredging and tourism, while environmental factor is water erosion; the swifts of island boundaries show significant relationship with the governance policy such as “prohibition of seine aquaculture” and “wetland park construction”, and more importantly there is a time lag between the actual happening of island change and the policy promulgation.