The purpose or this study is to simulate spatially the urban expansion phenomena with a cellular automata (CA) technique using GIS. A study area, Suwon city, was selected for test of model verification and application with the classified land-use maps of three data years: 1986, 1996, and 2000. The urbanized potential maps were generated with seven criteria of one geographic factor (slope of land), and six accessibility factors (time distances from city, national road, Seoul, station, and built-up boundary), considering their weighting values, which were optimized by WSM (weighted scenario method for intensity order) combined a ranking method and a AHP technique. The optimized weighting values at the urban expansion between 1986 and 1996 were applied to verify the CA model for the other expansion between 1996 and 2000. The results of model application showed that urban sprawl phenomena of the urban expansion toward rural area can be simulated spatially and temporally with several boundary conditions considering various scenarios for the criteria and parameters of the model. Ultimately, this study can contribute to reference data for land-use planning of urban fringe areas.