<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In this paper we study Zipf’s law, which postulates that the product of a city’s population and its rank (the number of cities with a larger or equal population) is constant for every city in a given region. We show that the empirical literature indicates that the law may not always hold, although its general form, the rank-size rule, could be a good first approximation of city size distribution. We perform our own empirical analysis of the distribution of the population of Polish cities on the largest possible sample to find that Zipf’s law is rejected for Poland as the city sizes are less evenly distributed than it predicts.</p></abstract>

In this paper we study Zipf’s law, which postulates that the product of a city’s population and its rank (the number of cities with a larger or equal population) is constant for every city in a given region. We show that the empirical literature indicates that the law may not always hold, although its general form, the rank-size rule, could be a good first approximation of city size distribution. We perform our own empirical analysis of the distribution of the population of Polish cities on the largest possible sample to find that Zipf’s law is rejected for Poland as the city sizes are less evenly distributed than it predicts.

<bold>Does Zipf’s law</bold> hold for Polish cities?

Department of Macroeconomics and International Trade Theory, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

European University Institute of Florence

Miscellanea Geographica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":{"bold":"Does Zipf\u2019s law","content":"hold for Polish cities?"}}

In this paper we study Zipf’s law, which postulates that the product of a city’s population and its rank (the number of cities with a larger or equal...

Does Zipf’s law hold for Polish cities?

Published Online: Jan 30, 2017

Page range: 5 - 10

Received: Feb 19, 2016

Accepted: Nov 04, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mgrsd-2016-0020

Keywords
Zipf’s law, rank-size rule, city size distribution, Poland

© 2016 Andrzej Cieślik et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Does Zipf’s law hold for Polish cities?

Published Online: Jan 30, 2017

Page range: 5 - 10

Received: Feb 19, 2016

Accepted: Nov 04, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mgrsd-2016-0020

KeywordsZipf’s law, rank-size rule, city size distribution, Poland

© 2016 Andrzej Cieślik et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Zipf’s law, rank-size rule, city size distribution, Poland