Zipf's law and city size distribution: A survey of the literature and future research agenda
Journal article
Arshad, S., Hu, S. and Ashraf, B.N. (2017). Zipf's law and city size distribution: A survey of the literature and future research agenda. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications. 492 (75-92). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2017.10.005
Authors | Arshad, S., Hu, S. and Ashraf, B.N. |
---|---|
Abstract | This study provides a systematic review of the existing literature on Zipf’s law for city size distribution. Existing empirical evidence suggests that Zipf’s law is not always observable even for the upper-tail cities of a territory. However, the controversy with empirical findings arises due to sample selection biases, methodological weaknesses and data limitations. The hypothesis of Zipf’s law is more likely to be rejected for the entire city size distribution and, in such case, alternative distributions have been suggested. On the contrary, the hypothesis is more likely to be accepted if better empirical methods are employed and cities are properly defined. The debate is still far from to be conclusive. In addition, we identify four emerging areas in Zipf’s law and city size distribution research including the size distribution of lower-tail cities, the size distribution of cities in sub-national regions, the alternative forms of Zipf’s law, and the relationship between Zipf’s law and the coherence property of the urban system. |
Year | 2017 |
Journal | Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications |
Journal citation | 492 (75-92) |
Publisher | Elsevier |
ISSN | 0378-4371 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2017.10.005 |
Web address (URL) | http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85032221276&partnerID=MN8TOARS |
Publication dates | |
Online | 16 Oct 2017 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 07 Oct 2017 |
Deposited | 07 Nov 2022 |
Accepted author manuscript | License File Access Level Open |
https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/92655
Download files
Accepted author manuscript
Zipf's law and city size distribution-Haplo.pdf | ||
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | ||
File access level: Open |
80
total views642
total downloads0
views this month18
downloads this month