Urbanization

stimulated by striking economic development

has been proceeded in China on a large scale and with striking rapidity in the past two decades. It is necessary to monitor and model urbanization process of China for its sustainable development. This paper presents a new light index for regional urbanization level estimation considering the light spatial distribution and intensity based on DMSP/OLS data

which was pre-processed by Japan National Institute of Environmental Studies. The correlation analysis between light index and composite urbanization index was carried out in province scale. The result shows that there is significant relationship between two indexes. The regression model for composite urbanization index estimation using light index was also developed with R 2 equal to 0.793. It suggests that light index is an effective and applicable index for regional urbanization analysis and monitoring. Through the analysis of light index change in China during 1992 to 1998

it is shown that the urbanization level in China is different from high level in East China to low level in West China

and urbanization level was improved largely during 1992 to 1998

especially in provinces of East China.