This thesis aims to analyze the relationships between urban sprawl and territorialisation, focusing on the crucial issue of metropolitan suburbs governance. In Western Africa large cities, suburbs are involved in complex spatial, socioeconomic, political and managerial transformations, in a context of decentralization. To analyze these transformations as well as the new dynamics of regulation they entail, we have adopted a territorial approach. At the micro scale, we try to understand the dynamics of urban sprawl through the weight of local contexts. At the meso scale of the whole set of suburbs, residential and economic developments are linked to the logics of actors and managerial practices. We try to understand the mechanisms of spatial transformations and their consequences on urban management. At the macro level, we are focusing on Dakar metropolization. Field surveys have been conducted within three local authorities, Diamniadio, Sangalkam and Yene, in order to study mechanisms, practices and logics of actors. Diamniadio, Sangalkam and Yene have specific local characteristics and, taking into account the major urban sprawl axis, they are located differently. In these three local authorities, processes of differentiation have been observed both at intra and inter territorial scales, which breaks with the former model center-periphery and reflects a new polycentric and multifunctional evolution in the Eastern suburbs.