Stalagmites and satellite images have been used to construct a record of climate and land use/cover changes for China. Grey color, luminescence, 18O, 13C, and petrographic studies reveal that there was a progressive weakening of the summer monsoon from 8.5 ka to present and that this was accompanied by an increase in El Nio activity. The climate was relatively constant and La Nia-like conditions were more common prior to 5 ka, but the amplitude of climate fluctuations increased and the frequency of El Nio increased after this. The temperature at northwest China decreased from 146-140 ka and the climate became drier. The research demonstrates the potential of stalagmites to provide detailed paleoenvironmental information for both short and long periods of time. Furthermore, it is clear that suitable stalagmites will allow comparison of Chinese historical records of climate change with proxy records of climate change obtained from stalagmites. This research also indicates that a hybrid unsupervised/supervised classification of satellite data can yield high land use/land cover accuracy in karst terrain.