1. The study automatically extracted built space from Landsat, Spot, and Ikonos images at 30m, 10m, and 1m resolutions respectively and assessed the accuracy. 2. Urban features and structures were characterized by comparing built surface areas extracted and analyzing built space density and landscape indexes across the three images. 3. The results showed great diversity in attributing pixels to density classes between the high resolution Ikonos image and lower resolution Landsat and Spot images, indicating different urban phenomena are analyzed at different scales.