China is in an accelerating urbanization stage, city circle is an inevitable and higher stage. Poyang lake city circle, as the new representative in the central China, provides a good example for this study. Symbiosis theory is cooperation and coordination in essence, consistent with development concept of city circle. This paper uses symbiosis theory to analyze situation of Poyang lake city circle, and establishes an evaluation system which consists of 21 indexes in four sub-systems, economy, society, resource and environment, and scores the 8 cities inside Poyang lake circle by means of factor analysis, and finds out there are issues existing in Poyang lake city circle, such as uneven development, small radiation range, poor overall planning, and regional difference on sustainable development awareness, and presents suggestions on pushing the sustainable development of Poyang lake city circle.