Methods on defining the urban fringe area of Beijing

Urban fringe lies in the transitional region between urban area and rural area. Defining the urban fringe area and researching the changing situation will be beneficial to the urban planning and the readjustment of land use structure. Taking Land-Sat TM images as basic information, using the theories of Shannon entropy and land use degree comprehensive index, methods on how to define the urban fringe area of Beijing are discussed. Further, the urban fringe area of Beijing is defined by using these two methods. It shows that the urban fringe area in Beijing includes a part of the urban district and also a small part of rural district. Distributing ring, it extends around irregularly, especially northwest and southeast.