An important research topic in remotely-sensed image processing and applicatoin is to improve the classification accuracy of TM Landsat image. In this paper

a survey is made on the current classification methods. A new method for TM Landsat image classification using rule-based expert system is discussed.In this method

an image is pre-classified by statistical classification method and "uncertain" pixels are detected. Then "uncertain" pixels are accurately using various types of knowledge and information such as spectrum

topography

soil map

the previous classification result and visual interpretation experiences etc. So the whole image has been classified more accurate-ly.Using this method

we have designed and implemented a preliminari land use classification system. Experiment proved that the accuracy of this new clasification method is 8 percent higher than that of the statistical classification （Maximum likelihood） which only uses multi-spectral information.