Abstract: Study on the spatial pattern evolution of the urban system in the Yangtze River economic belt could be important to understand the characteristics and laws of the spatial structure of the Yangtze River economic belt, and to promote the optimal development of the urban system in the Yangtze River economic zone. In this paper, the night light data of the Yangtze River economic zone are corrected by using the Landsat satellite data and the clustering analysis method. The threshold of the urban built area is obtained by the comparison of auxiliary data. A total of eight typical landscape pattern indicators, such as the total area of the landscape, the total patch number and the aggregation index, are selected based on this threshold. Thereafter, the spatial pattern of urban development in Yangtze River economic zone from 1992 to 2013 are analyzed by using the FRAG-STATS 4.2 software. The results show that:（1）During the period from 1992 to 2013, the urbanization of the Yangtze River economic zone was rapid. The area of urban built-up area increased by 9.68 times, the number of patches increased by 2.39 times, and the patch density increased greatly. These revealed that the number of towns continue to increase and the urban areas continue to expand in the Yangtze River economic zone. (2）The complexity of the landscape patch shape gradually increased, and the small and medium-sized cities continue to grow. More small towns emerged, and the total length of the border and the average density of the average annual growth rate of 21.56% and 21.58%. Thesereflected that the degree of aggregation in Yangtze River Economic Zone was getting higher, and the mutual influence was getting bigger. （3）The two indexes of maximum plaque index and aggregation index show a declining trend on the whole. However, there are some fluctuations and disorder in the process of evolution, such as total area of landscape, total patch number and patch density. These reflect the irregular and disorder characteristics in the Yangtze River economic zone.