This paper is an analysis of the city-size distribution for thirty-five countries of the world in 1975; the purpose is to explain statistically the regularity of the rank-size distribution by the number of cities included in the urban systems. The rank-size parameters have been computed for each country and also for four large urban systems in which several population thresholds have been defined. These thresholds seem to have more influence than the number of cities included in the urban system on the regularity of the distribution.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AuerbachF, 1913, “Das Gesetz der Bevolkungskonzentration”Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen5973–76
2.
BeguinH, 1979, “Urban hierarchy and rank-size distribution”Geographical Analysis11149–164
3.
BeguinH, 1982, “City-size distribution and central place models: A suggestion”Journal of Regional Science22227–239
4.
CarrollG R, 1982, “National city-size distributions: What do we know after 67 years of research?”Progress in Human Geography61–42
5.
CliffA DRobsonB T, 1978, “Changes in the size distribution of settlements in England and Wales, 1801–1968”Environment and Planning A10163–171
6.
EttlingerN, 1981, “Dependency and urban growth: A critical review and reformulation of the concepts of primacy and rank-size”Environment and Planning A131389–1400
7.
JohnstonJ, 1972Econometric Methods (McGraw-Hill, New York)
8.
MaleckiE J, 1980, “Growth and change in the analysis of rank-size distributions: Empirical findings”Environment and Planning A1241–52
9.
MulliganG F, 1979, “Additional properties of a hierarchical city size model”Journal of Regional Science1957–66
10.
PumainD, 1982La Dynamique des Villes (Economica, Paris)
11.
RichardsonH W, 1973, “Theory and the distribution of city sizes: Review and prospects”Regional Studies7239–251
12.
RosenK TResnickM, 1980, “The size distribution of cities: An examination of the Pareto law and primacy”Journal of Urban Economics8165–186
