Urban expansion, which has affected ecosystem functioning and services at local to global scale, is projected to have aggravating impacts on landscape in the future. A detailed study on spatiotemporal patterns of Hongta District in Yuxi City over a relatively long timeframe was conducted using multi-temporal Landsat TM, ETM+ and OLI data of 1987-2017 associated with Geographic Information System techniques and landscape analysis approaches. Results showed that sealed surfaces (urban area) have expanded from 1.4% to 11.8%, with an annually increasing rate of 7.63%. Trees, farm areas and barren lands all underwent a slight reduction during this time period, whereby 23.8% of farms and 9.8% of bare lands transferred into sealed surfaces. Focusing on the urban expansion pattern, it presents a uninuclear polarizing polygon mode illustrating the urbanization sprawl over time to all directions. The greatest expansions are seen in NNE and SSE direction, mainly because of the topographic constraints. A trade-off between urbanization and sustainable development is under investigation by reclaiming barren soil at the mountain range to transfer farming areas from low altitude plains to make way for urban growth.