This study focused on the use of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System in mapping of urban growth and sprawl a case study of Debre Birhan town. A high spatial resolution of Ikonos image and topographic map were used to study urban sprawl at housing level between1995-2008. Landsat (TM) satellite images for year 1986 and Landsat (ETM+) for the years 2000 and 2005 have been utilized to quantify the land-use /land-cover changes and the trend of urban growth. From the Land-use/land-cover maps, the built-up structures growth was 131% between 1986 and 2000, and 89.7% between 2000 and 2005. Annually the growth rate of built-up area for these study years was 9.38% and 17.94% respectively. The land-use/land-cover change statistics showed that the annual conversion rate of agricultural land and bare soil to built-up area between 2000 and 2005 accounts more than 50%. The Getis-Ord Gi* hotspot analysis toolsets of ArcGIS 10 was used for the analysis of spatial clusters and hot spot analysis of building footprints. Weighted Overlay Analysis using multicriteria decision technique is implemented to produce the urban sprawl expansion map of the area. The validation based on of Ikonos image 2008 revealed that the result is in good conformity with the model of suitability map. Generally, the visual comparison of land-cover 2005 and Ikonos image 2008 indicated that all agricultural land and grass land are under the influence of urban expansion.rnKey words: Remote sensing-GIS integration, urban growth, Land-cover change