Physical Transitions in Tehran City Urban Fabric

Urbanism, development of urban areas and expansion of metropolitan areas are of the most important characteristics of developing countries where Iran is no exception. In this sense physical development of Metropolis of Tehran has been accelerated in past few decades. In spite of attempts made to illustrate this development, yet application of appropriate techniques as well as data can improve provision of the trend. Hence, physical expansion of Tehran prior to 1891 has been extracted by the aid of ‘Change Detection’ technique and in accord to the historical documents, aerial photos and satellite imageries. The results show that physical development of Tehran Metropolis in various periods has been influences by the economic and political situation of ruling government; however the peripheral development of Tehran city has been accelerated since 1996 in comparison to the last decade that leads to rapid development of small settlements around the Metropolis. Furthermore, data extraction from various resources has shown the level of city’s development as well as the area development ratio in each period.