Economic construction and urbanization can lead to the evolution of urban spatial patterns, Nighttime light remote sensing images can effectively reflect the changes of urban spatial form, provide reference basis for reasonable urban planning and layout. The paper takes Jinan City as the research object, based on two kinds of nighttime light remote sensing images, DMSP-OLS from 2001–2010 and NPP/VIIRS from 2014–2020, as the main data sources, by performing a series of pre-processing operations on the data and using the statistical data comparison method to determine the optimal threshold, the extent of the built-up area of Jinan was extracted. Using indicators such as total nighttime light, urban spatial evolution rate, spatial compactness and elastic expansion coefficient, analyze the evolution of urban spatial form in Jinan. The results of the study showed that: 1) 2001–2020, the total amount of urban nighttime night value in Jinan City is on the rise, the urban area has grown significantly, 2014–2020 is the most rapid period of urban expansion21.78%; 2) The compactness of the built-up area of Jinan gradually decreases during 2001–2020, and the extent of the built-up area gradually becomes larger and spreads outward; 3) The pattern of urban spatial form in Jinan is a combination of group type and scattered type; 4) The expansion of the built-up area of Jinan in each direction shows that the expansion area is the largest in the due east direction, with an expansion area of 151.94 km2.The westward expansion rate is 1.17 km2/year; The expansion of the built-up area in the northwest, due north, and due south directions is relatively small due to the limitations of the northern Yellow River and the influence of the southern mountainous areas.