Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to study the distribution and fragmentation of land cover types of the Nanji Island, China using IKONOS images and fractal approach. IKONOS images are used to survey the land uses and land covers. Fractal theory is employed to analyze the edge effects caused by habitat fragmentation and land type structures.;To derive the land type information from IKONOS images, the threshold method, vegetation index method, false color synthesis method, data fusion method and man-machine inter...