Abstract: Poyang Lake is an important wintering habitat for waterbirds on the East Asian-Australasian flyway, and is one of the largest and most important wintering habitat for migratory birds in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and East Asia. From December 2017 to January 2018 and from December 2018 to January 2019, the direct counting method at fixed point was used to investigate the mid-wintering waterbird community in Poyang Lake. The results showed that there were 63 species of waterbirds belonging to 12 families, 7 orders recorded in Poyang Lake. Anseriformes and Charadriiformes were the dominant species at 69.84%. Among them, Anser albifrons accounts for 29.22%, Anser fabalis 17.96% and Anser cygnoid 14.54%. Besides, the number of geese and ducks accounts for 75.62% of the total population. In term of avifauna and the residence type, Palearctic species and winter migrants were the main bird species distributed in the middle of wintering in Poyang Lake, accounting for 76.19% and 60.32% of the surveyed species respectively. Some summer migratory birds were found to overwinter in Poyang Lake, too. Among the surveyed waterbirds, there were 14 species of nationally protected birds, including 5 species of first-class protected birds and 9 species of second-class protected birds. There were 44 species and 15 species of birds listed in the Sino-Japanese Migratory Bird Agreement and the Sino-Australian Migratory Bird Agreement respectively. Fourteen species were evaluated as threatened species in the Red List of China's Vertebrate. By comparing the similarity of waterbird community with several important wintering wetlands in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the study found that the overwintering waterbird communities were most similar to those at East Dongting Lake, which had 44 species in common, with a similarity index of 0.8000.