In the present work, urban sprawl in the rural territory of the province of Gorizia (Friuli Venezia Giulia region) has been studied over a period of 45 years ('50-2000). Indicators such as percentage of landscape occupied by urban areas, population density over residential area and the Shannon's entropy index have been applied to characterise the spatial and temporal variability of urbanisation in the rural territory of two different study areas and in buffer areas around towns. Results showed a higher increase of urbanized areas in rural land then in areas characterized by high density of settlements. This trend is linked with a low density of resident people in comparation with the extention of the residential land uses.
