Urbanization in China has been experiencing a remarkable dynamism in the past 40 years. The most evident implication of urbanization is the physical growth of cities. We analyze urban land growth rates and changes in spatial urban forms from the end of the 1980s to 2010 based on the authoritative National Land Use/Cover Database of China. We present new spatial measures that describe ‘urban land growth types’ and ‘fluctuations in urban land growth’ within the monitoring time span with a temporal interval of five-year steps. We evaluate the correlations between urban land growth rates and socioeconomic data. Results show that (1) distinct characteristics exist on the spatiotemporal evolutions of urban land growth rates in terms of area and perimeter, e.g. coastal areas exhibit the most dramatic growth rates; (2) the spatial distribution characteristics of ‘urban land growth types’ and ‘fluctuations in urban land growth’ follow similar spatial patterns across China, e.g. significant differences exist between the eastern region and other regions; and (3) a moderate correlation exists between urban area growth rate and urban population growth rate at an R² of 0.37. By contrast, we determine no significant correlation between urban area growth rate and tertiary industry value growth rate.

If urban sprawl is to be avoided in China in the next ten years, it is not only crucial to understand the overall history, current status, and future trends of urban expansion there, but also these differences, and this is presently lacking. In this study, remotely sensed images with approximately 30 m spatial resolution were used to quantitatively assess the spatial and temporal patterns of urban expansion of 60 Chinese cities (1973–2013). Urban-expansion-process curves of the cities studied were drawn using annual expansion area as an indicator. Curve similarity analysis generated four basic process modes of urban expansion in China. These included cities that: 1) peaked around 2004 and then decelerated; 2) peaked around 2010 and then decelerated; 3) showed sustained acceleration, and 4) showed continued deceleration. Four basic process modes represented cities under different levels of development stage. Geographic location was found to be the most related characteristic to urban expansion process. Regional development policies at the national level in each region also showed highly temporal consistency with fluctuation characteristics of urban expansion process. Urban characteristic such as population size and administrative level were not found to be significantly related to urban expansion-process modes. Understanding the basic process-mode categories well is extremely important for future regional-balance planning and development of macroeconomic policies.

‘Ghost cities’ are a well-known phenomenon of (almost) complete vacancy of urban living space in China. Underutilization of urban living space, however, is far more common than complete vacancy. Here we propose the concept of housing utilization efficiency (HUE) and present the following findings: (1) the overall HUE in China’s highly urbanized areas decreased from 84% in 2010 to 78% in 2020, (2) the HUE in central, old urban areas was generally lower than that in the outer layers of urban areas and declined more from 2010 to 2020 and (3) four development types are found to represent different patterns of urban population movement, urban housing growth and HUE change at the intraurban level. These findings provide comprehensive insight into the discrepancies between urban housing supply and demand in China and highlight their connections to the country’s particular urbanization characteristics and policies, which are crucial for future housing development and planning.

The dynamic urbanization process of China has stimulated a massive growth of urban settlements in the past few decades. With the development of remote sensing technology and the release of the long-time Landsat archive, spatial characteristics of urban settlement are gradually analyzed on a large scale, and various patterns are developed for describing and analyzing it. However, the urban settlement patterns were mainly quantified by the landscape metrics in existing studies, the underlying features shaping urban settlement pattern were always neglected. In this study, we establish a systematic and comprehensive ‘urban development index system’ for describing China’s urban settlement pattern and its evolutions during the end of the 1980s through to 2010 by using a series of statistical methods. Results show that (1) urban settlement pattern in 2010 is quantified comparatively simpler and more completely than in the end of the 1980s; (2) urban settlements in western and eastern regions present integrated pattern and homogeneous attributes, while urban settlements in central and northeastern regions present relatively complex pattern and various attributes; (3) urban settlements with the most variable pattern are accompanied by the most dynamic population and economic capacity, followed by landscape dispersion. Topographic complexity of urban settlements generally remained unchanged or with slight fluctuations, therefore, it has limited influence on settlement pattern evolution.