Measuring the urban expansion process of Yogyakarta City in Indonesia: Urban expansion process and spatial and temporal characteristics of growing cities

Urbanization patterns in rapidly growing cities are complex. Such patterns reflect historic policy outcomes, economic characteristics and changing lifestyles. This research examined urban growth in Yogyakarta City in Indonesia to understand its urban expansion process. Several attributes of urbanization were measured to understand the city's urbanization pattern. Land-use data for 1997, 2002, and 2013 were derived from remote-sensing data; in addition, other supporting data of urbanization were measured with several spatial metrics. Analysis was performed for the whole city and for transections across the city to understand macro and local scale characteristics of the urbanization process. Urban land-use changes between 2002 and 2013 were studied to understand the land-use conversion process. Thereafter, the measurements were analyzed to understand temporal and spatial characteristics of urbanization in Yogyakarta City. It was observed that the urban expansion process in Yogyakarta has several distinct stages. Essentially, in the periphery of the city, urbanization has been fragmented. Over time, these fragmented urban patches develop into stable and less complex shapes.