关键词: 
Urban land expansion /
regional difference /
spatial patterns /
temporal variations /
China.

摘要: This study investigates the regional differences of China’s urban land expansion from the late 1980s to the year of 2008, based on the spatial and temporal analysis of CLCD datasets which were mainly produced from remote sensing imagery data. A newly defined urbanization level index (UI), based on urban land area, is proposed to describe Chinese urban expansion process at 1 kilometer, provincial, regional, and national scales, together with the absolute urban expansion area index (UXa) and the relative urbanization intensity index (UXr). The results indicate that the percentages of total land area occupied by urban in the late 1980s, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2008 were approximately 0.25%, 0.32%, 0.33%, 0.43% and 0.52%, respectively. Between the late 1980s and 2008, the total urban expansion in mainland China was 26.45×103 km2, resulting in an annual urban expansion area (UXa) of about 1322.7 km2 per year, with an urban expansion intensity (UXr) of 111.9%. This study also points that there has been an obvious spatial gradient of urbanization ratio running from the east coast to the west inland, and the urbanization gaps among different regions have persisted over the past two decades. The study also reveals obvious temporal variations of the urbanization rates. There was very little urban growth during the period of 1995-2000.