Urban Spatial Expansion Characteristics in China’s Rapid Urbanization Region—A Case Study of SXC Region

Urban spatial expansion characteristics are the responses of urbanization acts on the geographical space. Analyzing the characteristics can reveal the process of urban expansion and mechanism which is one of useful methods to find out the sustainable land use strategy balancing development and protection. In this paper, two main methods have been deployed in analyzing the spatial expansion characteristics of rapid urbanization region. One is the expansion index method and the other is fractal dimension method. And the results show that town-level urban sprawl has increased in a non-linear way since 1985, and even the increments of the urban expansion intensity are fluctuated. Morphology transformation from scatter to concentration is common phenomenon in the process of urbanization in the towns. From the morphology point of view, downtowns are more homogenous than towns with less variation. The concentration is the leading development trend in downtowns. And the more distance from the downtown is, the more spatial pattern morphology will be observed. These characteristics indicate that macro-scale policies of economic development and land use management have great impacts on the formation and characteristics of spatial patterns of urban dynamic patterns.