Based on the remote sensing images of 1976

1989

2001

and 2007

the land use information of urban fringe in Harbin City was extracted with the method of human-computer interaction. This paper focused on the quantitative characteristic and space variation characteristic about the urban fringe of Harbin City. Results showed that during the 31 years from 1976 to 2007

the urban area of the city increased persistently

especially between 2001 and 2007. From the landscape pattern of construction land

the number of patches increased and the compactness index decreased from 1976 to 2001

while it was opposite after the year of 2001.The expansion of construction land had the obvious space differentiation characteristic and the expansion of urban construction land can be reflected in various directions at different times.