Abstract: Rapid urbanization, especially the speed and scale of the current Chinese urbanization, requires detailed understanding of spatial characteristics of the changing of urban landscape. This has a significant implication for rational and effective urban land use. The purpose of this paper is to derive the information of the landscape change during the spatial expansion of Zhengzhou City during 2001-2007. We detected the change of land cover avail of the remote sensed imageries of Landsat7 ETM and Spot 4. Further, we calculated the landscape matrices of mean patch size, landscape shape index, landscape fragment index, and contiguity index to measure the size of land plots, compactness of the developing, shape and connectivity respectively. In order to show the heterogeneous character of the spatial expansion, the gradient analysis was conducted in the range of 20 km radius centered the place nearby the city center, Erqi Square. The change of detection of land cover illustrated that, during that period, urban land use increased 70.6 km² at the average annual rate of 4%, and the east, northeast and southeast were the main urban land use directions of urban expansion. The speed of expanding of the east part was nearly as two times as that of west part. The landscape matrix analysis showed that the size of land parcels increased in general, yet with a great variation. Generally, the change of landscape and urban expansion are correlated. The areas with economic-spatial driver such as the Zhengdong Xinqu and Economic Zone become a lead in the urban expansion. In the process, the size of plots and connectivity increase. Within the 10 km radius to the center, the urban land of the city became more compact, especially in the rapid urbanizing directions. But beyond that distance, the developmental pattern could be compact or loose. By comparing, landscape is slightly changed along the corridor with less economic drivers. These results call for particular attentions of planners to optimizing urban spatial structure.