Maize (Zea mays L.) is the most prominent crop in the Northeast Farming Region of China (NFR), anddrought has been the largest limitation for maize production in this area during recent decades. Thequestion of how to adapt maize production to drought has received great attention from policy mak-ers, researchers and farmers. In order to evaluate the effects of adaptation strategies against droughtand examine the influences of policy supports and farmer households’ characteristics on adopting deci-sions, a large scale household survey was conducted in five representative maize production countiesacross NFR. Our survey results indicated that using variety diversification, drought resistant varieties anddibbling irrigation are the three major adaptation strategies against drought in spring, and farmers alsoadopted changes in sowing time, conservation tillage and mulching to cope with drought in spring. About20% and 18% of households enhanced irrigation against drought in summer and autumn, respectively.Deep loosening tillage and organic fertilizer are also options for farmers to resist drought in summer.Maize yield was highly dependent on soil qualities, with yields on land of high soil quality approxi-mately 1050 kg/ha and 2400 kg/ha higher than for normal and poor soil conditions, respectively. Usingvariety diversification and drought resistant varieties can respectively increase maize yield by approxi-mately 150 and 220 kg/ha under drought. Conservation tillage increased maize yield by 438–459 kg/hain drought years. Irrigation improved maize yield by 419–435 kg/ha and 444–463 kg/ha against droughtin summer and autumn, respectively. Offering information service, financial and technical support cangreatly increase the use of adaptation strategies for farmers to cope with drought. However, only 46%of households received information service, 43% of households received financial support, and 26% ofhouseholds received technical support against drought from the local government. The maize acreageand the irrigation access are the major factors that influenced farmers’ decisions to apply adaptationstrategies to cope with drought in each season, but only 25% of households have access to irrigation.This indicates the need for enhanced public support for farmers to better cope with drought in maizeproduction, particularly through improving access to irrigation.