Fluctuations of lake status reflect changes in water balance of precipitation minus evaporation (P-E) over a catchment. The ancient lake status can provide information of precipitation and humidity during the late Quaternary. Synchronous changes in regional lake status may keep lake levels from being influenced by non-climatic factors or local factors. The recognition that lake data could be used to reconstruct past regional climate changes leads to the construction of a global lake-level data base. Nowadays, Quaternary Lake status data bases have played a key role in reconstructions of continental-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and are used to compare and evaluate the simulations of precipitation and P-E from the atmospheric general circulation models. Lake records from North Eurasia show regionally-coherent patterns of changes during the late Quaternary. Lakes, peripheral to the Scandinavian ice sheets were lower than today at the glacial maximum, but high in the Mediterranean zone, reflecting the dominance of glacial anticyclonic conditions in North Europe and a southward shift of the westerlies. The influence of the glacial anticyclonic circulation attenuated in the late glacial period, and the westerlies gradually shifted northward, so that drier conditions in south of the ice sheet were confined to a progressively narrower zone in North Europe, and the Mediterranean zone became drier. During the Holocene. there was a gradual shift to conditions wetter than present in central Asia, associated with the expanded Asian monsoon, and in the Mediterranean, in response to a local, monsoon-type circulation. Conditions were drier in North Europe, reflecting the increased incidence of blocking anticyclones centred on Scandinavia. Conditions in the interior of North Euravsia were similar or slightly wetter than present, likely associated with cyclonic activity on the dowiivStream limb of the summer anticyclone in the west and monsoon penetration in the east. These reflect thechanges in insolation and glacial boundary conditions. Simulations of the response to insolation forcing at 6000 yrBP made with five different AGCMs show some common features, e. g, more humid than today in the mid-latitudes of Eurasian continent, enhancement of the Afro-Asian monsoons, drier conditions in North Europe but wetter conditions in the Mediterraneanregion. By comparing the lake data with simulated P-E fields basis can be provided forunderstanding the observed climatic changes and for evaluating the climate model simulations. Thus the paper introduced the work on European lake status database and discussed the basis, methods and applications of the data bases, in order to improve work on the Chinese data base and speed the global data base.