Variability in physiography and land management can lead to differences in urban development rates and patterns in space and through time. While traditional studies have focused on contemporary anthropogenic impacts on the environment; relatively few have investigated and quantified the influence of biophysical forces, relative to human historical factors, on long-term and large-scale urban trends and patterns. In this research, I first developed a framework that uses readily available data to build fine-resolution historical land cover timelines over large areas. To build this timeline, I transformed pre-settlement land surveys (c.a. 1850s) and early aerial photographs (c.a. 1940s), and improved the mapping accuracy of the first national land cover dataset (GIRAS, 1975) to make it compatible with the contemporary national land cover database (1994-2006). Second, I used the compiled timeline to empirically analyze the historical development trends and rates around Little Rock city, Arkansas (USA). For this analysis, I developed a robust environmental-historical approach to emphasize the potential influences of environmental forces on shaping development transitions within and among-ecoregions. Finally, I studied the influence of physiography on historical and future (1975-2050) urban growth trends and patterns across an east-west gradient in the Arkansas-Red River basin. The products from this research have broad applications to urban planning, landscape ecology, and