The migration structure is the foundation of the restoration for the sedimentary evolution of paleochannel, as well as the base for predicting the tendency of the migration. It is the aims of this paper to reveal the migration structures of a meandering channel by using the historical satellite images and observation data from the technique of Google Earth and ACME Mapper. The target river is Irtysh River, which is free from the impact of human being, thus making the preservation condition of the structure of this natural channel is relatively good. 50 meanders of this river are investigated and 6 of them are chosen for detailed characterization. During the process, static elements and dynamic elements are adopted to demonstrate the plane structure of the meandering channel. Simultaneously, 5 kinds of parameters are proposed to quantitatively reveal the structure of channel. Extraordinarily, 3 of them are firstly posed and the other two are also different with the definition of predecessors. Through the meticulous analysis for the migration structures of 6 typical meander loops, 6 kinds of basic planform structures of migration are obtained. Eventually, 9 migration patterns of the meandering channel are concluded.
