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The spatial clustering method is a prevalent way to identify urban fringes due to its objectivity and convenience. However, previous studies had problems with ignoring spatial heterogeneity, which could overestimate or underestimate the recognition results. Nighttime light can reflect the transitional urban\u2013rural regions\u2019 regional spatial characteristics and can be used to identify urban fringes. Accordingly, a new model has been established for urban fringe identification by combining spatial continuous wavelet transform (SCWT) and dual spatial clustering. Then, Nanjing City, China, as a case study, is employed to validate the model through the NPP\/VIIRS nighttime light data. The identification of mutated points across the urban\u2013rural gradient is conducted by utilizing the SCWT. By using dual spatial clustering in the urban fringe identification, it transmits the mutation points\u2019 spatial patterns to the homogeneous spatially neighboring clusters effectively, which measures the similarity between mutation points regarding spatial and attribute domains. A comparison of the identified results by various spatial clustering approaches revealed that our method could be more suitable for the impacts of mutation points\u2019 local spatial patterns on different density values over the whole density surface, thus leading to more accurate spatial boundaries featured by differentiating actual differences of mutation points between adjacent clusters.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs14236126","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,5]],"date-time":"2022-12-05T05:31:32Z","timestamp":1670218292000},"page":"6126","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Integrating Spatial Heterogeneity to Identify the Urban Fringe Area Based on NPP\/VIIRS Nighttime Light Data and Dual Spatial Clustering"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1745-3319","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jie","family":"Zhu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China"},{"name":"Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Physical Geographic Environment, Chuzhou 239004, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210023, China"}]},{"given":"Ziqi","family":"Lang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China"},{"name":"Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Physical Geographic Environment, Chuzhou 239004, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3229-6438","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jing","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"School of Geographic and Biologic Information, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8420-2141","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Meihui","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Civil, Environmental Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK"}]},{"given":"Jiazhu","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6696-975X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jiaming","family":"Na","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China"},{"name":"Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210023, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"564","DOI":"10.1038\/s41893-020-0521-x","article-title":"High-spatiotemporal-resolution mapping of global urban change from 1985 to 2015","volume":"3","author":"Liu","year":"2020","journal-title":"Nat. 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