Based on the remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) analysis of the Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS) and thematic mapper (TM) satellite images of 1983, 1993, and 2005, the present research examined the effectiveness of the urban construction boundaries (UCBs) in containing urban growth within the 6th Ring Road of Beijing Municipality. Three indicators on boundary control were proposed, through which the effectiveness of boundary containment, land inventory sufficiency and illegal adjacent development to the UCBs were explored. The results suggested that, first, the UCBs were limited in effectiveness in containing urban growth; second, the area encompassed by the UCBs might not be designed large enough to accommodate new development. The frustration of the urban growth control through the UCBs mainly resulted from the lack of a transparent system for urban land use planning and control to provide sufficient information, the limitation of the traditional land use prediction method to consider contingencies, and the absence of a mechanism to monitor and adjust the UCBs to respond just in time to urban change.
