Objective This study on the interaction between metropolitan urbanization and coupling and coordination of ecological environment aims to explore the high-quality development path of regional economy, society and ecology and provide a new perspective for regional collaborative planning and sustainable development.

Method Urbanization and ecological environment evaluation index system was constructed from the eight dimensions of “population-social-economy-space” and “scale-pressure-governance-efficiency”. With the Shanghai metropolitan area as the research object and 9 cities and 16 districts of Shanghai as the basic research unit, the coupling coordination degree model was applied based on panel data from 2011 to 2020. This paper quantitatively reveals the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics of the coupling and coordinated development of urbanization and ecological environment in Shanghai metropolitan area from the two dimensions of city and Shanghai jurisdiction.

Result  (1) From 2011 to 2020, the degree of coordinated development of coupling urbanization and ecological environment in Shanghai metropolitan area showed a positive trend of evolution from “basic coordination” to “optimized coordination”, but the development level and pace of different regions were uneven, and the spatial distribution showed differences. (2) At the urban level, the three districts of Shanghai Central City, Suzhou-Wuxi-Nantong and Zhoushan were developing simultaneously, showing a spatial pattern of multi-district development. (3) At the jurisdiction level of Shanghai, the coupling coordination degree in the downtown area of Shanghai was better than that in the suburbs of Shanghai, showing a polarization pattern.

Conclusion From 2011 to 2020, the coupling coordination degree of urbanization and ecological environment in Shanghai metropolitan area increased steadily, but there were great differences among different regions and their spatial distribution was unbalanced. In the face of mismatch between urbanization development and ecological environment construction, this study proposes differentiated territorial spatial planning and regional coordinated development strategies based on the perspective of system coupling and coordination, so as to provide references for the high-quality and healthy development of metropolitan areas.