Suburban identification based on multi-source data and landscape analysis of its construction land: A case study of Jiangsu Province, China

The rapid advancement of urbanization and industrialization has blurred boundaries between urban and rural areas. The traditional urban-rural dichotomy fails to adequately account for suburbs-the wide, transitional, and mixed areas between the city and the countryside. The identification of suburbs is essential to the study of regional spatial structure, land-use transition, landscape analysis, and regional planning. However, existing delimitation methods of suburbs have limitations, such as singularization of index selection, simplification of judgment standards, and inaccurate judgment results. In response to the above problems, this study used multisource geographic data and combined multi-logistic regression (MLR) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) to construct a suburban identification method using Jiangsu Province as an example by mapping its suburban boundaries and analyzing the landscape characteristics of its construction land. The results showed that: (1) the proposed method could be used to identify the spatial scope of suburbs, (2) this method was more accurate than the ones based on the traditional logistic regression model, and (3) types of construction land in the suburbs of prefecture cities in Jiangsu could be divided into internal consolidation, external expansion, and comprehensive management, demonstrating the practical significance of spatial identification of suburbs.