To monitor the long-time-series urbanization process of the Lingang Special Area of China （Shanghai） Pilot Free Trade Zone and analyze its spatiotemporal continuous change characteristics and driving forces， this study utilized Landsat long-time-series remote sensing images from 1984 to 2020. Annual average and pixel-level time-series curves of the Normalized difference built-up index （NDBI）， Normalized difference vegetation index （NDVI）， and Normalized difference water index （NDWI） were constructed. Linear regression fitting was employed for abrupt change detection to determine the start and end years of urbanization. Based on this， 1984 and 2020 were selected as benchmark years， and a random forest classifier was used to classify the land use/cover types of Shanghai Lingang Special Area. The results showed that from 1984 to 2020， the additional urban land mainly originated from water bodies and vegetation. The urban land area increased by 346.73 km²， with an average annual growth rate of 12.85%. Taking 2001 and 2010 as turning points， the process was divided into three stages： slow development stage （1984-2000）， with an average annual growth rate of 8.83%， medium-speed development stage （2001-2010）， with an average annual growth rate of 12.49%， and rapid development stage （2011-2020）， with an average annual growth rate of 15.39%. The study revealed that economic and population growth were the primary driving forces of urban land expansion. Spatially， the urbanization development of Shanghai Lingang Special Area exhibited characteristics of coastal and patchy distribution. The speed and sources of urban land expansion varied across different periods， and economic development and urbanization process promoted each other. This research holds extremely important practical significance for the future refined urban construction of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the rational and effective utilization of estuarine and coastal resources.