Landscape is in continuous change since the human society started to exploit it. The driving forces for land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes might be considered divers, but one of the main cause is the natural resources accessibility. Oil resources shaped, indirectly, the landscape worldwide, being a direct driving force for LULC change patterns for oil oriented cities. Diachronic analysis of LULC dynamics in such an urban settlement shows how the urban and periurban landscape has changed from the beginning of oil extraction and processing activities to present days. Ploieşti city, from Romania is a traditional oil center from Eastern Europe that faced a continuous evolution, under different planning policies, due to its oil based industrial activities. The study focused on the city’s urban and periurban area and covered a timeframe of 105 years of landscape changes, divided in three periods (The Royal Period, The Socialist Period and The Post-communist Transition) characterized by different political ideologies. The study emphasized the fact that oil oriented cities are more independent of political planning, the resources being the main driving force for landscape patterns.