In order to detect the spatial conflicts in the process of spatial database updating, a refined description of spatial relationships is needed. This paper presents a topological chain model for refined line-line spatial relationships. The model integrates the topological relationships and order relationships with the metric relationships, such as intersecting angles, number of intersection points, distance between two intersection points, and area of the region formed by two intersectant curves. Based upon such detailed descriptions of the line-line relationships, the spatial conflicts can be detected automatically. The validity of the model and the efficiency of the method have been approved by automatic detection of the conflicts between rivers and contours for the national spatial database at the scale of 1:50,000.