The planning of metropolises is a challenging issue, as it guides the high-quality development of developing cities. Providing a development direction through rational planning while avoiding path dependency is a key challenge for developing cities pursuing high-quality development. This issue is discussed in this paper, with the Nanchang Metropolitan Area, China, taken as an example. The solution involves analyzing the urban spatial pattern to reveal the phased characteristics and evolutionary trajectory of the urbanization process, and comparing it with developed cities to provide insights. To this end, satellite remote sensing data and landscape indices are used for the analysis. Data sou... More >