Due to new urbanization patterns, where cities’ edges are becoming increasingly difficult to delimit, a better understanding of urban-rural gradients has become a key issue for urban planning. These interstitial territories are characterized for being highly heterogeneous, with hybrid and complex dynamics and -due to their landscape ambiguity and rapid transformation-frequently lack of clear regulations. Through calculation and analysis of landscape metrics in high resolution satellite images, this study proposes a novel and accurate method to identify urbanization patterns. It was applied to the urban-rural gradient of the Metropolitan District of Quito (MDQ), an Andean city.