Land use/land cover (LULC) information in the form of maps is essential for the planning, supervising natural resources, utilisation of land to meet the increasing human demands and monitoring changes in the ecosystem. In this study, remote sensing data and geographic information system applications were used to analyse the LULC and its changes in Tirupati, which is located in the Seshachalam hill range in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh (AP) state, South India. The study area is a world-famous pilgrimage centre and fast-developing town. Therefore, updated LULC maps must be created for various departments. The aim of this study was to classify and determine changes in the LULC over the 40-year period 1978-2018 by using multi-temporal Landsat satellite images and Survey of India toposheet map. The 1978 and 2018 Landsat images and field survey data were selected to classify the data. The ERDAS Imagine v16 and ArcGIS v10.1 were used to process images and assess the changes in land use of this study area. Classification was performed using the maximum likelihood classifier algorithm of supervised classification. Images were classified into five major classes: forest, water bodies, agricultural land, barren land, and built-up land. A post-classification change detection technique was used here to find changes in LULC. Changes were mainly observed in the built-up areas. The results demonstrate that during the forty years period, built-up area and barren land/other land increased 454.33%, and 104.7%, and area under waterbodies, agriculture, and forest decreased to 73.07%, 61.84%, and 31%, respectively. In future, these changes may have a significant influence on the ecosystem.