## 1 Introduction  
Land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), as a present feature of global environmental change, are directly driven by human activities [1; 2] and have become a contested topic in research on global environmental change and sustainable change [3; 4; 5]. LUCC specifically refers to changes in the biophysical attributes of the Earth's surface and the application of these attributes for human purposes [6]. Previous studies have provided examples showing that LUCC is closely related to land degradation [7; 8], soil erosion [9], and biodiversity losses [5], as well as threatening food security [5] and contributing to climate change [10]. China is an important part of the global environment. The LUCC and land management in China have experienced significant changes since the 1980s, as the country launched market reforms and actively intersected with globalization [3; 11; 12]. Different land-use conversion patterns have occurred in different sub-regions of China. Examples include grassland degradation in the northern region [13]; deforestation in the southern region [14]; water body loss in the northern region [15]; the loss of cropland, particularly in coastal regions [16]; and built-up land expansion throughout China [17]. Built-up land expansion is a major land-use conversion process in China and has been shown to have direct and indirect effects on land-use transformation [18]. Specifically, experts and scholars have revealed the patterns, drivers, and ecological issues related to this expansion [12; 19; 20]. Urban land expansion is occurring rapidly all over the world, causing various problems and relationships with other land-use types, not only in China. [PERSON] et al. [21] indicate that rapid urbanization in North America has challenged the conservation biodiversity and regional ecosystem services, and urbanization has also led to a series of conversions from other land-use types to built-up land. Deriving the historical urbanization patterns and processes is crucial for the sustainable development of urbanization in the future [21; 22]. Since 1978, economic reform in China and built-up land expansion, especially urban land expansion, have mainly been a result of economic development, extensive population growth, and policy changes [23; 24]. Built-up land expansion includes urban land expansion, rural settlement expansion, and infrastructure area expansion [25; 26; 27]. Urban land is defined as the built-up land used for urban settlements, and urban land expansion is defined as the urban land containing new built-up areas that are built within a certain time period [23]. The term urban land expansion in this research refers to urbanization. Urban land in China has experienced a significant increase, especially since the 1980s. The number of cities increased from 69 in 1947 to 223 in 1990. Until 2012, there were 670 cities, hosting about 44% of the total population of China [12]. The count of prefecture-level cities rose from 188 in 1990 to 287 in 2000. The percentage of urban population (the population that lives on urban land) reached 49.9% in 2010 and exceeded 50% by the end of 2012. China has become a predominantly urbanized country [17]. The rapid urbanization process has had significant effects on climate change [28], soil protection [29; 30], and water conservation [31], and the urban island has led to air pollution, threatening human health [29]. Additionally, urbanization has also affected rural land via the \"ecological footprint\" through the consumption of cropland in peri-urban residential areas, as well as through infrastructure and amenity uses [5]. Above all, determining detailed land-use change information over a long time period and determining urban land expansion patterns and processes is strategically important for understanding land-use patterns and driving forces in China, as well as for sustainable land-use planning. The Zhujiang-Xijiang Economic Belt (ZXEB) developed a national level strategy in 2014.