1. Rank Size Rule and Urban Primacy
Matthew Garren and Carter Stacy

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. Example Chart
This Chart represents the Rank Size Rule because it shows the expected population size vs. the actual population size

8. 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.

9. What the rank-size rule shows
It will show that the 2nd ranked city will have a half the population of the 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.

10. 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.

11. Sources www.lewishistoricalsociety.com www.slideshare.net
Barron's Ap human Geography test prep.
An Introduction to Human Geography