Abstract: Aiming at the problem of inadequate accuracy of social and economic parameter estimation in local area by nighttime light images, a new light index method based on the Boston matrix is proposed. Based on the traditional light index method, this paper introduces the Boston matrix and establishes the linear model after classifying all the study areas. We choose the electric power consumption of social and economic parameters as the research object, with 2015 VIIRS product as the main data source, select a total of 182 prefecture-level cities in mainland China from the 17 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as research areas. By using the Boston matrix, all cities are divided into four categories:star city, cash cow city, problem city and thin-dog city, respectively.The results show that the average relative error of light index method based on the Boston matrix is 34.04%, which is less than 41.69% of the traditional light index method. In addition, the average relative error of the light index method based on the Boston matrix is smaller than that of the traditional light index method, except for the star cities.According to the relative error, the estimation results are divided into three types:high precision, medium precision and low precision. The proportion of the high and medium precision estimation results based on the Boston matrix is higher than that of the traditional light index method, while the proportion of the low-precision results is lower than that of the traditional light index method.It can be seen that the light index method based on the Boston matrix me-thod is superior to the traditional light index method in the estimation of electric power consumption.