Abstract: Cities of the world have continued to witness remarkable modifications of their municipal area, population and road transportation network. This study examines urban expansion and road network development in Ile- Ife, Osun State, Nigeria between 1968 and 2019. The study used secondary sources of data. The data employed include 1968 topographic map covering the area, multi date (1986 and 2007) Landsat imageries, 2014 of the Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) image and 2019 Google earth imagery of the area. The imageries were georeferenced and digitized in ArcGIS environment to extract and calculate the area and length of urban area and road network respectively in the study area for each of the studied years. The results showed that the urban area expanded from 5.71 km2in 1968 to 103.99 in km2 in 2019. Road network also increased from 34.26km in 1968 to 944.51km in 2019. The study revealed that a significant positive relationship exists between road network development and urban expansion in Ile-Ife between 1968 and 2019 (r=0.956, p<0.05). The findings of the study provide important reference for the understanding of urban expansion and road network development in Nigerian cities. The study recommends that government should provide enabling environment that would guaranty strict compliance with regulations guiding physical urban expansion (physical planning) and roads network development as the two are positively related.
Key words: Development, Road network, Urban expansion