Abstract: Urban land cover has major impacts on urban ecosystem service and inhabitant living environment. Chinese cities' spatio-temporal distribution of impervious surface area and green land shows more remarkable differences than that of USA. This study focused on monitoring and comparing the spatio-temporal dynamics, land cover patterns and characteristics of urban functional regions in six cities located in China and USA, based on Landsat TM/MSS images obtained in 1978, 1990, 2000 and 2010. The study indicated that the three major cities in China were developing with compact forms, but the three major cities of USA have presented dispersed forms during the past 30 years. The proportion of vegetation land of the three cities in the USA was as much as 2.21 times of that in the three China's cites. Land use types of Chinese cities are more complicated with a higher density of impervious surface area. In contrast, the CBD and living areas of American cities were covered by low impervious surface area and high rate of green land, which were relatively independent. This study can make contribution to urban planning and administration for both China and USA.

Key words: China, remote sensing, green land, impervious surface, urban structure, USA