Abstract:

Urbanization is one of the most importance affecting factors for regional sustainable development and modernization construction Taking rapid urbanized Southern Jiangsu Province as the case area，multitemporal remote sensing images were used to indicate the process，pattern and effects of urban expansion Expanding intensity and speed of urban construction lands were adopted to indicate the process of urban expansion，and fractal dimensions，compactness index were used to indicate the changes of urban form and ranksize distribution since reform and opening up Results indicated that the hotspots of urban expansion experienced the process of “DispersingClusteringDispersing” Faster urbanization of cities at the two wings，and especially at the east part，promoted the formation of dumbbellstyle urban pattern The urban form was always at the intermediate state between extremely complex and regular，but was with the trend of being more irregular，more unstable and looser Compactness of the middle cities declined faster than that of the eastern and western cities It was concluded that the globalization，regional strategies，locations，and advantages of backwardness were the major influencing factors for the changing of hotspots and ranksize distributions，which played different importance role at relevant stages The dominated expanding pattern along certain development axes was of significance for the change of urban form