Economic Development and Loglinearity in the Rank-Size Distribution of Urban Systems

The purpose of this paper is to examine, empirically, the dynamics of the soviet urban system in light of the rank-size distribution hypothesis and to extend the analysis initiated by HARRIS on the U.S.S.R. to the Republic of Ukraine. The first part of this paper will present a brief recall of the theoretical aspects dealing with the measurement of city distribution, with reference to the various points of view on the topic. In the second part, the rank-size hypothesis will be tested for each census year during the 1897-1979 period for the U.S.S.R. to observe changes in the slope values of the distribution, expressed in logarithmic form, of several classes of cities.