| __7Rank-Size Rule | The cities in any region may be ranked from largest to smallest according | to their population size. Thus, the largest city is ranked No. 1, the second largest No. 2, continuing in this way down to the lower ranking towns.origin of Urban Places 188 The rank-size rule, proposed by G.x, Zipf in 1949, attempts to express the relationship between towns in a precise matfiematical terms and states | tat the urban’ Settlements in an area are ranked in descending order of population, the population of the nth town will be 1/n' that of the largest town”. In other words, the population of urban settlements in a region can be arranged in the series of 1, 1/2, 1/3, V4, ...1/n. This regularity can also be expressed by the formulae ~~ _Pn = PI/n where Pn is the population of the order and P1 is the population of the largest city. Thys; if the largest city has a population of 2 millions, the tenth ra ing Own shoilld, according to the Tule, have @ popilation of 2,00,000 inhabitants, 7 town of rank n in the descending Figure 4.1. The Rank-Size Rule on: (a) normal curve (6) log-normal distribution a b Figure 4.1 above shows in a graph from the theoretical result for the tank-size rule together with the actual relationships between rank and Population size for the cities of England and Wales. The use of logarithmic scales on both axes converts a concave curve into a linear or almost linear Tesult. It can be seen that the population of London is greater than the rank-size rule suggests it should be, but that the trend of lower-order towns accord roughly with the rule. Many developing countries show a sharp fall from the largest city (primate city) to the other cities and this is known as primate rule (Fig. 4.2). Zipf postulates that the size and number of settlements in any nation are governed by two sets of forces, i.e.,fi) the forces of diversific: Gil) the forces of unification. The balance between the two forces results in the regularity of settlement size and number.NI Origin of Urban p 146 My 7 istribution Figure 4.2 Deviations in Rank-Size Distributi 1000 each dot represents a town plot according t0 its population size 100 binary pattem Population size (log. scale) eee stepped order pattern theoretical rank-size primary pattern rule pattern a 100 1000 Rank (ag. scale) = Aeices of Diversification ‘The location of small settlements is generally determined by neamess to the source of raw materials. In such a situation, where primary economic Activities predominate, land becomes the basic raw material or resource) and is tilled by farmers to produce food and other basic necessities of ie. A Peasant society rooted to the land merges with a large number of village Settlements within walking distance of each other. Similarly, apart from agriculture, other primary activities such as mining, fishing and forestry also generate dispersed settlements of small size at regula intervals distance. As society advances, secondary production makes it possible to locate settlements of greater distances from the source of raw materials. ing in secondary production can be located farther apart, and also be lar; 'ger in terms of population, Nevertheless, 2 wide range of secondary economic activi E ties must be located near the source of raw materials so that the \—Forces of Unification Mascontrase fo Wi forees of diversification! the forces of wares eon the emergence of few large settlements ce 0 Here, the focus is on tertiary economic activities. Nearness to the market, rather than the source of raW materials, is the determining factor in the location of settlements. The sizsi of urban Places 147 market is measured re the Population of the settlement itself. Thus, a irs settlement ae a Fh cmuaututes a large market, Tertiary activities, ch a education, healt a administration, are all consumer-oriented an tend t0 pete ated in large cities. In recent times, a wide range of secondary oe Wes Have acquired a market orientation (for example, electronic an engime ng Bods and information technology industries). ese secondary economic activities also tend to concentrate in large metropolitan cities. These forces lead to the emergence of a few very large cities — jank-Size Relationship in India the rank-size relationship is absent in India at the national level as the copulation size of Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi is very close to each other. Moreover, a great bir bla of states in India also do not conform to”the rank-size rule. In fact, primacy exists in at least 15 out of the 28 states of india and in another eight states (Bihar, Kerala, M.P., Punjab, Orissa, Goa, jrunachal Pradesh and Nagaland) the city is only just larger than {he second city. In Kerala, the three cities of Cochin, Calicut, and vananthapuram (Trivandrum) have nearly the same population size; s also the case with cities of Indore, Jabalpur and Bhopal in Madhya pradesh, and Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar in Punjab. Rank-size wee ES ee relationships 2 appear to hold good in the state of Rajasthan. In brief, rank-size rule in India is an exception rather than a rule. Thit Criticism e rank-size rule of Zipf is rather rigid and rarely found in an exact empirical fit. Moreover, it attaches great importance to the population size of the largest city in a region or country. The population size of every other | settlement depends on the size of the largest city. The application of rank-size Tule is difficult-because there is no universal definition of city sizes. There are many cities where the built-up area extends outside the administrative boundaries of the city and where many city workers live beyond the edge of the built-up areas. Looking at the problem of application of rank-size rule, it can be better used for comparative purposes. The_rank-size rule is more descriptive rather than explanatory or predictive.