divided into two parts, four parts, eight parts, and so on, and form a hierarchy with cascade structure. If we rank these …-urban hierarchy complies with Zipf’s law, and the values of the rank-size scaling exponent are very close to 1. The significance of … rank-size rule. Third, it suggests a new way of understanding fractals, Zipf’s law, and spatial organization of urban …

as a q-sequence. Based on this sequence, a self-similar hierarchy consisting of many levels is defined and the numbers of … from the hierarchy. Thus we have two exponential functions, from which follows a hierarchical scaling equation. The results … information about city development than the former. Moreover, the self-similar hierarchy provides a new perspective for studying …