The study explores how the application of fractal analysis contributes to the evaluation of urban sprawl patterns. Urban sprawl has recently become an important issue mainly because of its environmental impacts and the general discussion concerning urban sustainability and the concept of compact cities. Fractal analysis highlights the complexity and self-similarity of urban patterns, whilst the fractal dimension is a widely applied quantitative descriptor of urban form and structure which reveals the degree of irregularity or fragmentation. The focus of the analysis is on the particularities of the Greek metropolitan areas, whilst a case study is used to describe the degree of urban sprawl in two different periurban sectors of Thessaloniki.JEL classification code: R10, R14. Keywords: urban sprawl, fractals, Thessaloniki