We characterized and analyzed the dynamics of a rapidly expanding urban landscape of Beijing Municipality, based on the Hierarchical Regional Space (HRS) model. We focused on ecological processes such as flows of energy, materials and population between the urban core and its periphery, and how these processes co-evolved with urbanization. We treated the HRS as an alternative to the cellular automata (CA) approach to characterizing and modeling of landscape dynamics. With LANDSAT data, we showed that the urban area of Beijing expanded from 269 km² to 901 km² in the period from 1975 to 1997, an increase of 2.35 times in 22 years. Meanwhile, a number of secondary urban centers formed on areas that used to be sparsely populated around the city. These secondary centers quickly expanded and ultimately merged with each other and with the urban core. The changes in spatial pattern and organization were accompanied by evolution of urban functions and particularly the interactions between the urban core and its periphery. We demonstrated a dramatic increase in dependence of the urban core on the periphery as well as the cores influence on the periphery with a case analysis of the vegetable supply to Beijing. The tightening link between the city and its periphery reinforces the urbanization process and further drives the transformation of the regions landscape. We conclude that the HRS model is capable of characterizing the patterns and processes of complex and dynamic landscapes such as the case of Beijing, and this model has great potential for quantitative modeling of human dominated landscapes as well.