Land useLand use is dynamic and is one of the main driving forces of global environmental changes. Urban expansion has increased the exploitation of natural resourcesNatural resources and remarkably changed land useLand use and land cover patterns. The land useLand use/land cover change detection is of major concern in spatial planning, management and proper utilization of the land. This study aimed to detect the changes in the land useLand use and land cover (LU/LC) of Peshawar district using remote sensing data. The study made use of the Landsat imageries of 1980, 2000 and 2020 taken from USGS Earth Explorer. Maximum likelihood classification method is used to classify the imageries. Four land useLand use classes build-up area, water bodyWater bodies, open area (barren land) and vegetation cover (agricultural land) were identified and mapped. The classification of images was analyzed and accuracy assessment was carried out using a confusion matrix which showed that accuracy for 1980 was 86.5%, for 2000 88.8% and for 2020 it was 91.85%. The results showed that in the past 40 years, there has been a significant change in the land useLand use of the Peshawar District. The built-up area has increased to 24.82% over time, while there is a decrease in the vegetation cover, barren/open land and water bodyWater bodies by 42.95, 31.42 and 0.81%, respectively. This trend is a significant threat to city sustainabilitySustainability and needs to be addressed urgently.