Abstract: Urban spatial form shows a certain degrees of complexity, and developing its quantitative description method is both theoretically and practically important for urban community construction in the coastal areas. Based on the fractal theory, this paper analyzes the spatial form of a typical fishery village by the sea, Gaopu community in Xiamen, by boxcounting method and calculates the fractal dimension to study the complexity evolution of community spatial form. The results mdicate that the spatial form of the community has fractal dimension characterized by its fractal structures. Since 1989 the fractal dimension of community spatial form increases but fractal dimension of the community boundary decreases. The estimated fractal dimension of community spatial distribution has statistical correlations with the total community building area, total construction area, building density, and volume ratio. The results indicate that community expansion may have led to significant changes in community spatial form and the boundary complexity due to 30year rapid urbanization in coastal areas.