PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Research on spatial characteristics of metropolis development using nighttime light data: NTL based spatial characteristics of Beijing 1,2 3 4 5 Yuli YangID *, Mingguo Ma , Xiaobo ZhuID , Wei Ge 1 School of Civil Engineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, China, 2 Emergency Mapping a1111111111 Engineering Research Center of Gansu, Lanzhou, Gansu, China, 3 Chongqing Engineering Research Center a1111111111 for Remote Sensing Big Data Application, Southwest University, Chongqing, China, 4 Chongqing a1111111111 Engineering Research Center for Spatial Big Data Intelligent Technology, Chongqing University of Posts and a1111111111 Telecommunications, Chongqing, China, 5 Shenzhen State High-Tech Industrial Innovation Center, a1111111111 Shenzhen, China *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Abstract Citation: Yang Y, Ma M, Zhu X, Ge W (2020) As the capital and one of the metropolises in China, Beijing has met with a number of serious Research on spatial characteristics of metropolis so-called "urban diseases" in the process of rapid urbanization such as blind expansion of development using nighttime light data: NTL based spatial characteristics of Beijing. PLoS ONE 15(11): urban areas, explosion of population and the increase of urban heat island effect. To treat e0242663. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. these ªurban diseasesº and make the metropolis develop healthful and sustainable in Beijing pone.0242663 in the future, the spatial characteristics of metropolis developments in Beijing are explored Editor: Jun Yang, Northeastern University in this paper. The urban built-up areas in Beijing are extracted using the DMSP-OLS night- (Shenyang China), CHINA time light data from 1992 to 2013. The characteristics of the urban developments of Beijing Received: June 5, 2020 are studied, including spatial and temporal scales of urban developments, urban barycenter Accepted: November 8, 2020 of Beijing and its transfer trajectory, variations of urban spatial forms and the differences of urban internal developments.