We apply social area analysis, traditionally used for intra-urban areas of cities, to a space in transformation: the peri-urban fringes of Andalusia (Spain). We also show that multivariate analysis (both exploratory factorial analysis and cluster analysis) is highly adaptable for use in peri-urban areas in the region. The suitability of exploratory factor analysis is confirmed, as it allows an optimal factorial structure for the spatial microanalysis of urban sections, which are the smallest units with official statistical information in Spain. This is done in order to reduce a large number of indicators to four factors: youth and recent urban expansion, traditional rural society, suburban society and residential recreational function. On the other hand, the last step, the cluster analysis, identifies that the phenomenon of suburbanisation was relevant in the region but was not the majority in the whole of the peri-urban fringes at the beginning of the millennium. From the factorial score of these clusters, it is possible to know the level of intensity of suburbanisation at one of the moments when suburbanisation was at its peak in Andalusia (Spain), just before the Great Recession.