2008/02/29 by Hiroto Kuninaka, Mitsugu Matsushita · 18 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Census #Distribution (mathematics) #Exponent #Global Urban Networks and Dynamics #Population #Power (physics) #Power law #Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis #Spatial and Panel Data Analysis #physics.data-an #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1143/jpsj.77.114801
published in Journal of the Physical Society of Japan 77(11), 114801 (Physical Society of Japan) · 6 pages, 9 figures, resubmitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn
arxiv created 2008/08/25 · openalex publication_date 2008/11/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study rank-size distribution of cities in Japan on the basis of data analysis. From the census data after World War II, we find that the rank-size distribution of cities is composed of two parts, each of which has independent power exponent. In addition, the power exponent of the head part of the distribution changes in time and Zipf's law holds only in a restricted period. We show that Zipf's law broke down due to both of Showa and Heisei great mergers and recovered due to population growth in middle-sized cities after the great Showa merger.