Based on the multi-temporal remotely sensed data of TM&ETM,the magnitude,in-tensity and spatial heterogeneity of urban growth in Shanghai region were studied by integrating the urbanization index with GIS gridding analysis,the results indicate that:1)The urban landuse growth relatively centralized along the directions represented by Baoshan-Minhang,and Jiading-Pudong,which also formed south-north and east-west axis of urban growth respectively.The ur -ban landuse composition(i.e.,residential&industrial landuse)and growth rate differed much in each stage,which led to the urban growth dominated by different urban landuse types and thus pre sented different performance.The urban landuse growth were controlled by the residential lan- duse from1987to1990firstly,and then transformed being composed of residential and in dustri-al landuse from1990～1995.Finally,the industrial landuse acted as the key contributor to the ur -ban landuse growth,2)The urban growth modes were distinct in each stage,and showed the gen-eral trend from"single core growing"(urbanization is organized by single large city central)to the modes of"multi-core growing"and"point-axis growing"(urbanization are co-launched by city cen-tral,satellite towns and main traffic lines),thus the whole urbanization network has been setup and upgraded greatly,followed by the urban landuse function changed to be more complicated and multi-use oriented,3)the magnitude,rate and contribution to urban landuse growth showed strong difference for the landuse of city growing and developing zone.The city growing landuse dominated by the residential area decreased sharply in contrast with the rapidly increased trend for the landuse of developing zones,which manifest that the establishment and expansion of de-veloping zones played a key role in urban landuse growth in the past decade.