The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is one of the most dynamic economic regions in the Asia-Pacific region. At present, it still faces many problems, such as the over-exploitation of urban land and unbalanced development. Through the study of the spatial–temporal characteristics of the development intensity of the PRD region and its driving factors, the key points and difficulties of urban development can be intuitively found. In previous studies, geodetector was widely used to determine the impact of driving factors. This paper uses several different research methods, including the Moran index, the semi-variability index, hot and cold spots, etc., based on the land use data of the PRD region in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 to analyze the spatial–temporal characteristics of the development intensity. Combined with the socio-economic data of the statistical yearbook, factor detection and interaction detection of the 10 driving factors of development intensity are carried out based on geodetector, and reasonable optimization suggestions are put forward for the current situation of the region. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The overall development intensity of the PRD region shows an upward trend, showing a “core periphery” spatial pattern of high center and low periphery centered around the Pearl River estuary. (2) The spatial distribution of cold and hot spots shows agglomeration, mainly in the form of high aggregation and low aggregation. (3) The driving factors for the development intensity for the PRD region in the past 30 years mainly include population agglomeration level, industrial structure level, economic strength level, terrain slope, etc. Among them, any two factors have a stronger interaction than a single factor, and all are enhanced by two factors. The dominant factors of interaction in different periods are different.

Urbanization have been significantly reshaping the form of urban areas and natural landscapes, leading to complex urban morphologies. In 2012, the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification was proposed to address this issue and has since been widely adopted in urban climate studies globally. Despite its prevalence, literature on dynamic mapping of urban morphology remains sparse, making it difficult to delve into the study of urban renewal year by year. In this study, we compared different training scales, producing dynamic mappings of urban morphology with a spatial resolution of 100 meters spanning from 2000 to 2022 in major Chinese cities, based on the LCZ scheme. The results demonstrate strong inter-year consistency, and the accuracy of urban morphology change mapping is overall higher than 70%. Additionally, our results exhibit good alignment with other LCZ mapping datasets, more suitable for the current development situation in China, and effectively discriminate between building heights and densities across different LCZ types. This dataset holds significant potential for enhancing urban morphology monitoring and advancing urban climate research.