Abstract: Urban spatial expansion is the most significant feature of urbanization in space. It can not only measure the level of urbanization in cities, but also guide the sustainable development of cities. This paper takes Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration (CCUA) as the study area, based on the nighttime lighting data, first of all, it analyzes the urban spatial expansion of CCUA and the distribution characteristics of urban hotspots. Secondly, based on the ecological space constraints of the CCUA, the minimum cumulative resistance surface was constructed, and the evolution trend of the urban hotspot pattern of CCUA was simulated. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The cold-hot spots of urban expansion in CCUA reflect different characteristics in different periods. In the four time periods, CCUA urban expansion shows a weak trend of spatial natural correlation, and the global features of the distribution of cold-hot spots became randomized. Reflecting the diversity of urban space expansion, the cold-hot areas of the city spread pattern experienced a “spot expansion-point ring expansion-point axis expansion-axis radiation” transformation process.(2) In the different scales simulation of urban expansion, the evolution trend of cold-hot spots in CCUA is the hot spot area becoming increasing. When the urban space expands by 5%, there are only four hot-spot cities based in Chengdu, Mianyang, Dazhou, and Meishan. When the urban space expands by 20%, all cities (16 in total) have a spatial expansion intensity exceeding 10%, and has become hot spots for urban space expansion.