Chennai is one of the most densely populated cities in India facing challenges in shifting the city to metropolitan or mega city in the last two decades with continuing agglomeration. To model the growth of Chennai city, we have used cellular automata-based urban growth models based on the historical datasets. In the present study, urban growth of Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) was predicted for the year 2017 based on 2010 and 2013 dataset and Chennai city master plan using neural-network-coupled agent-based cellular automata (NNACA) model. Eight different agents of urbanization including transportation, hotspots, and industries were used in the prediction modeling. On validating the 2017 predicted outputs, NNACA model with hotspots proved to be better (hits: 498.52 km2) than that of without hotspots (hits: 488.31 km2). Out of the total eight agents of urbanization, the most influencing agent of urbanization of 2017 was identified to be the neighborhood of ‘Existing built-up of 2013’ using ‘sensitivity analysis’. Further, the urban sprawl of CMA for 2010, 2013 and 2017 was measured through Shannon’s entropy. The study area was divided into five directional and distance-based zones with the State Secretariat as the center. Entropy values suggest the need for more careful planning for further development in the southern region of CMA which has undergone congested urban growth while urbanization is dispersed in the northern part of the study region which can be thought for future urban developments.