[Objective] To understand the patterns and processes of land use change, and to make full use of the time series land use data to investigate the characteristics of land use patterns.[Methods] Changsha City was selected as an example and the geographic information system (GIS) and IDRISI platform were used to calculate the transfer frequency of land use change and involved land use categories.[Results] ① With the increase of the times and categories of land use transfer, the corresponding changes in the number of pixels were reduced, and the change involved 2 categories and transfer once was more prominent. ② Urban expansion obviously occupied crop land and woodland in the periphery of urban region, the area was 202.86 km² and 169.96 km², respectively. While the construction land was converted into cropland to compensate for occupied crop and woodland in rural region, the area was 48.27 km² and 12.04 km². ③ The change pattern of other towns was similar with the central area of Changsha City but their radiating capacity was relatively weak.[Conclusion] Changsha's urban expansion is accelerating. Land reclamation can supply a small amount of cultivated land and forest land, but the urban expansion in the cost of outer cultivated land and forest land is still the main change mode. In addition, the local land use patterns and scales follow a certain urban hierarchy.