Rank Size Rule and Urban Primacy
MATTHEW GARREN AND CARTER STACY
Founder
 The founder of the Rank Size Rule is George Kingsley Zipf.
 Zipf was born in Freeport, Illinois on January 7th, 1902
 Zipf died in Newton, Massachusetts on September 25th, 1950
Definition of Rank-Size Rule
 It is the proportion of small towns to large cities and applies to different
regions and the world as a whole
 Examples: sizes of cities or businesses, people’s wealth.
Why the Rank Size Rule was Created
 The Rank Size Rule was created to explain the size cities in a country.
 The Rank Size Rule was created in 1949, one year before George Zipf’s
death
Definition of Urban Primacy
 Urban indicates the primate city.
 Primate cities are the largest cities in their area that dominate all the surrounding urban areas.
 Atlanta is a primate city because it dominates all the surrounding towns such as Kennesaw,
Marietta, and Powder Springs.
The Primate City
 The Primate City theory is the corollary theory of the Rank Size Rule
 The founder of this theory is Mark Jefferson
 The purpose of this law is to explain the phenomenon of huge cities that
capture a large proportion of a country’s population and economic
activity.
 Example: Paris, France
Example Chart
This Chart represents the Rank Size
Rule because it shows the expected
population size vs. the actual
population size
Formula for rank-size rule
 Pr= P1/P2
 Pr is the population of the rth rank size.
 P1 is the population of the largest city
 P2 is the rank of the city.
What the rank-size rule shows
 It will show that the 2nd ranked city will have a half the population of the
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first.
The 3rd ranked city will have one-third of the population of the first.
The 4th ranked will have one-fourth the population of the first.
The creator, George Zipf, wanted to make a rule that shows a
mathematical relationship between rank and population.
For example, according to this, Los Angeles, California, which is the
second largest city in the U.S. should have a population half the size of
New York City, New York which is the largest city.
Application
 This rule does not apply in all places.
 It tends to work in more developed countries rather than lesser
developed countries.
 The more developed countries have many urban primates, one
controlling each region it is in.
 In the lesser developed countries, they generally have one urban
primary which is the center of the whole country.
Sources
 www.lewishistoricalsociety.com
 www.slideshare.net
 http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb308.html
 Barron's Ap human Geography test prep.
 An Introduction to Human Geography