Tangxun Lake is the largest urban lake in Asia, and its water quality has been deteriorating with urbanization and enhanced anthropogenic activities. The sedimentary history of PAHs in the inner and outer lakes of Tangxun Lake over 120 and 140 years, respectively, was reconstructed. The total PAHs concentrations in the inner and outer lakes ranged from 30.23 to 672.74 ng g^-1 and 25.90 to 851.31 ng g^-1, respectively, which were generally lower than other urban lakes in the world. The sedimentary environment of the inner lake is more stable than that of the outer lake, and the vertical distribution of PAHs in the inner lake correlates well with the socio-economic development indicators of Wuhan, Wuhan gross domestic product (Wuhan GDP), Wuhan population and Car ownership, and also with the development history of China; the sedimentary environment of the outer lake is presumed to be influenced by floods, and the vertical distribution of PAHs corresponds to several major floods that occurred in Wuhan's history. The vertical distribution of PAHs also corresponds to several major floods in Wuhan's history and is generally uncorrelated or negatively correlated with Wuhan's socio-economic development indicators. Diagnostic ratios and PCA-MLR results showed the sources of PAHs in the sedimentary record of Tangxun Lake are generally derived from coal combustion, petroleum combustion, and petroleum spills, and are related to the energy use of residents in the Tangxun Lake area and the developed transportation in Wuhan.
 

PAHs,Sedimentary records,Tangxun Lake,Historical variation