Changes and sustainability of the villages around the city of Hamedan by GIS

Urbanization and increasing share of urban population is international trend. In less developed countries like Iran and Hamedan province this trend started late but running fast. In this way the extent and population of cities is growing and with this growth affect the surrounding villages. The effects of rapid growth have destructive effects on environment and create social and economic problems and in general leads to unsustainability. In the present study using aerial photographs and remote sensing and geographic information system changes in the physical limits of Hamadan and its surrounding villages from 1335 to 1393 determined; and population changes in the same period were studied. In this period physical size of city growth faster than population growth. City grew 7.9 times in physical area and 16 times in official area and population size grew 5.5 times. In the first of period there was 16 villages around the city but in end of time 10 villages were merged to the physical tissue of city. Increase the physical size of the area is not limited to the city. Investigate of the physical limits of the remaining villages in the area showed an increase in the size of all of them and show 2.8 times increase in physical area of 6 villages, while their population growth were low. The method used in this study with a combination of all aerial photographs of the area and a satellite image for a period in the Arc GIS software environment has been shown to be a good indicator of the trend and speed of changes in physical realms and can be recommend for use cities and villages of the country and can complete with field surveys if necessary support provided.