Hierarchy of Consumer Services

We spend as little time and effort as possible in obtaining consumer services and thus go to the nearest place that fulfills our needs. There is no point in traveling to a distant store if the same merchandise is available at a nearby one. We travel greater distances only if the price is much lower or if the item is unavailable locally.

Rank-Size Distribution of Settlements

In many developed countries, geographers observe that ranking settlements from largest to smallest population produces a regular pattern. This is the rank-size rule, in which the country’s nth-largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

According to the rank-size rule, the second-largest city is one-half the size of the largest, the fourth-largest city is one-fourth the size of the largest, and so on. When plotted on logarithmic paper, the rank-size distribution forms a fairly straight line. In the United States and a handful of other countries, the distribution of settlements follows the rank-size rule at least reasonably closely.

Distribution of Settlements in the United States and Mexico

The size of settlements (as measured by metropolitan area population) follows the rank-size rule in the United States and the primate city rule in Mexico.

Rank-Size Distribution: United States

Houston is the 5th largest settlement in the United States and has an even larger population than the rank-size rule predicts.

If the settlement hierarchy does not graph as a straight line, then the country does not follow the rank-size rule. Instead, it may follow the primate city rule, in which the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement. In this distribution, the country’s largest city is called the primate city. Mexico is an example of a country that follows the primate city distribution. Its largest settlement, Mexico City, is ten times larger than its fifth-largest settlement, Toluca, rather than five times larger.

Primate City Distribution: Mexico

Toluca is Mexico’s 5th largest settlement but has a smaller population than the rank-size rule would suggest.

The existence of a rank-size distribution of settlements is not merely a mathematical curiosity. It has a real impact on the quality of life for a country’s inhabitants. A regular hierarchy—as in the United States—indicates that the society is sufficiently wealthy to justify the provision of goods and services to consumers throughout the country. Conversely, the absence of the rank-size distribution in a developing country indicates that there is not enough wealth in the society to pay for a full variety of services. The absence of a rank-size distribution constitutes a hardship for people who must travel long distances to reach an urban settlement with shops, hospitals, and other important services.

Pause & Reflect 12.2.2

Does Peru follow the rank-size rule or the primate city rule? Use your search engine to find “most populous cities in Peru.”

Nesting of Services & Settlements

According to central place theory, market areas across a developed country would be a series of hexagons of various sizes, unless interrupted by physical features such as mountains and bodies of water. Developed countries have numerous small settlements with small thresholds and ranges and far fewer large settlements with large thresholds and ranges. In his original study, Walter Christaller showed that the distances between settlements in southern Germany followed a regular pattern.

Four different levels of market area—hamlet, village, town, and city—are shown in. Overlapping hexagons of different sizes form a nesting pattern. Hamlets with very small market areas are represented by the smallest contiguous hexagons. Larger hexagons represent the market areas of larger settlements and are overlaid on the smaller hexagons because consumers from smaller settlements shop for some goods and services in larger settlements.

Central Place Theory

Businesses in central places compete against each other to serve as markets for goods and services for the surrounding region. According to central place theory, this competition creates a regular pattern of settlements.

Across much of the interior of the United States, a regular pattern of settlements can be observed, even if not precisely the same as the generalized model shown above. North-central North Dakota is an example below. Minot—the largest city in the area, with 48,000 inhabitants—is surrounded by:

• 13 small towns of between 1,000 and 3,000 inhabitants, with average ranges of 30 kilometers (20 miles) and market areas of around 2,800 square kilometers (1,200 square miles).

• 29 villages of between 100 and 999 inhabitants, with ranges of 20 kilometers (12 miles) and market areas of around 1,200 square kilometers (500 square miles).

• 34 hamlets of fewer than 100 inhabitants, with ranges of 15 kilometers (10 miles) and market areas of around 800 square kilometers (300 square miles), including Maxbass, illustrated in Figure 12-12.

Central Place Theory in North Dakota

Central place theory helps explain the distribution of settlements of varying sizes in North Dakota.

Hamlet: Maxbass, North Dakota

North of Minot, near the junction of routes 83 and 5.

Larger settlements provide consumer services that have larger thresholds, ranges, and market areas. Only consumer services that have small thresholds, short ranges, and small market areas are found in small settlements because too few people live in small settlements to support many services. A large store cannot survive in a small settlement because the threshold (the minimum number of people needed) exceeds the population within range of the settlement. For example, Minot is the only settlement in that has a Walmart.