The large-scale archaeological excavations of the past years yielded a rapid increase of archaeological finds and observations. This large amount of new evidence enabled the observation of wider environmental archaeological relationships. In the study we reconstruct certain environmental and settlement pattern changes from the 13th to the 18th centuries based on archaeological data from the southern shore of Lake Balaton and the cities of the Danube Bend region. The settlements on the shore of Lake Balaton and along the Danube reacted similarly, but with a temporal lag. Hydroclimatic changes caused a shift in the location and structure of lake- and riverside settlements, which was of a horizontal character in the case of Lake Balaton, and of a vertical character in the case of the Danube Bend region.