Wetlands, a unique ecosystem between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems,has special ecological functions and important for regional ecological security. While, with the rapid development of human society, human activities lead to that most of the wetlands disappeared and degenerated. For protecting the residual wetlands, related works for wetlands restorations were already carried out gradually. Building a reference wetland system is one of the most important steps for wetland restoration, and understanding how wetland initiation and vegetation succession are important for building a suitable reference wetland system. To these aims, Holocene wetland initiation and vegetation succession in Northeast China are reviewed in this paper. Combining with potential controlling factors (e.g. climate change),we want to find how wetland initiation and major plant community succession Northeast China and its responses to controlling factors. Results shown wetland in Northeast China were mainly initiation after 8000 a B.P. Nearly 30% of wetlands were initiated in the mid-Holocene (8000 ~4000 a B.P.), and more than 60% of wetlands were initiated in the Late Holocene(4000 a B.P. to present). Compare to the mid-Holocene, the climate conditions in Late Holocene were cool and dry and more suitable for wetland initiating from the lake or other aquatic ecosystems. The major succession of plant communities in the wetland which initiated from the aquatic ecosystem are from Equisetum sp. to Carex sp. to Deyeuxia angustifrolia/shrub. Based on reviewing the related studies,we found there still exist several works for building wetland restoration reference system should improve in the future studies. Such as, how plant community succession in wetland which initiated from grassland or forest, and how to make water table depth and water quality reconstructed by paleoecology methods available for building reference system.