MONITORING URBAN SPRAWL IN IKORODU AND ITS SURROUNDING, LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA. Imhanfidon O. J., Mohammed S. O. and Adepoju M. O. Department of Strategic Space Applications. National Space Research and Development Agency, justinimhanfidon@gmail.com; somoh@yahoo.com; olumighty1@hotmail.com ABSTRACT Rapid urban development and dramatic change of landscape have been recently witnessed in some developing countries as a result of rapid economic growth. The monitoring of urban sprawl in these areas is crucial to government officials and planners who urgently need updated information for planning and management purposes. Ikorodu and its surrounding in Lagos State have been experiencing a large influx of population from its surrounding regions, which had led to rapid growth and expansion that had left profound changes on the landscape in terms of land use and land cover. This, therefore, brings to bear the urgent need for the use of modern digital town planning techniques that can easily provide accurate data for efficient planning preferences rather than the continual use of conventional analogue methods. In view of this, this study uses the remote sensing and geographic information system techniques to monitor urban sprawl in Ikorodu and its surrounding in Lagos State between 1984 and 2014) The methods adopted for this research involves the use of remote sensed data from landsat imageries (Landsat Tm 1984, Landsat Etm+ 2000, and Landsat Oli 2014). Groundthruthing was also carried out to corroborate the data from the satellite images. The results show that the study area was expanding rapidly leading to an inverse spillover effect on the vegetation resources, cropland and water body of the peripheral area. This has placed a serious burden on the Department of Town/Land Use Planning saddled with the responsibility to properly integrate this adjoining rural settlement into already existing urban form. Keywords: Urbanization, urban sprawl, Land use/ Land cover, Remote sensing 1.0 INTRODUCTION The world is increasingly becoming urbanized, and the rate at which city populations grow and countries urbanize is an indicative of the pace of social and economic change (Donk, 2006). Urbanization is a global phenomenon which is currently sweeping through developing countries like a “wild fire”. Consequently, basic infrastructure and services are rarely provided as urban