LAUSR

Abstract Although urban expansion has been extensively studied at different scales in China, relatively little attention has been paid to the county scale. Xiongan New Area (XNA) was selected as the study area and its urban expansion processes from 1975 to 2017 were retrieved using remote sensing and GIS technology, and its spatial-temporal characteristics of urban expansion were revealed from the aspects of basic characteristics of urban expansion, urban spatial morphological evolution, interactions of urban lands, and assessments of the imbalanced degree of population-land urbanization. Results indicated that urban lands in XNA expanded significantly. Cultivated lands were the first land source for urban expansion. Urban lands mainly adopted the edge-expansion, which rendered the urban fringes to be complex and irregular. The interaction of three counties in XNA was strengthened successively, especially after the implementation of the ‘New Urbanization’ strategy. Population-land urbanization was inharmonious but has improved from moderate to mild imbalance.