The Western World Daily Readings on Geography Chapter 95 Russian Domain Urban Geography II

CHAPTER 95 Russian Domain Urban Geography II The Rule , The Rule was derived by Harvard Professor George . When used to express the relationship between ranked urban population size within a single region or country , it has the mathematical equation shown to the left , where equals population of a given city , while equals the ranked order of that city among all cities in that region or country . Thus , is the population of the number one or largest city . When applied to countries across the globe , few countries show a distribution that matches the Rule . It can be asserted that countries that fulfill three specific characteristics are likely to have a population distribution that can be modeled at least to some extent by the Rule . Keep in mind that such a country will have numerous large cities with a progressively declining population distribution by ranked order . First , countries that have large areas may have a distribution , for a large area allows many cities to grow significantly in size . Ever since the progressive annexation of Siberian territory , Russia has been the largest land ofthe world . Even before the Russian Revolution , the Russian Empire held vast lands across Siberia and over Central Asia , so that the new Soviet Union also was a huge country . The breakup of the USSR created fifteen new countries , with Russia still by far the largest . As the largest country in the world by land area , clearly Russia meets this first criterion . Second , countries that have large populations may have a distribution , for a large population provides enough people to inhabit many cities of significant size . In 1900 Russia held a population of about 125 million people , certainly large enough to meet this criterion . However , while Moscow had gained urban from early Russian history , under Tsar Peter the Great a new city Petersburg was built and designated as the new capital city . With this change , Petersburg challenged Moscow for importance and population size . Until Moscow regained its role as capital city under Bolshevik rule in the Soviet Union , Petersburg rivalry prevented Russia 455

456 JOEL QUAM AND SCOTT CAMPBELL from matching the distribution . The two major cities were too close together in population for under the rule , the population of the second largest city is projected to be only half that of the largest city . Third , countries that have a long history of urbanization and industrialization may have a distribution . In this case a sufficient amount of time is necessary for the development of a number of large cities . For this criterion tsarist rulers of Russia had brought industrialization and urbanization patterns from Europe however , these trends were far behind those of Europe , and especially those of Western Europe . While Russia may have been ahead of countries and regions that we now often designate as in the Third World , Russia was not advanced in terms of industrialization and urbanization . This was to change , however , under Soviet rule . The dominance of heavy industry and the planned socialist economy in the Soviet Union prompted substantial industrialization and urbanization . Thus , in the USSR all three of these criteria were met , strongly suggesting that a distribution of urban population may be present . The USSR had the large area , the large population , and sufficient years of urbanization to develop many large cities . Additionally , the secondary importance of capital cities of Soviet republics protected against the single dominance of Moscow , while the ascendancy of Moscow over Petersburg left Moscow as the single top city . An examination of the 1989 population figures for the largest seven cities of the USSR indeed does show a distribution . Of course , it must be noted that the Rule can not possibly predict actual urban populations down to the last man , woman , and child . Some error is expected of the shown here . It is the general pattern and the geographic causes ofthat pattern that are important to understand . Indeed , using the Rule for 1989 , Petersburg is projected or predicted to be million when it actually was million thus , the projection was only wide by about . These small variations are acceptable in demonstrating the Rule . City by Rank Population ( in millions ) Projected Rank Unrounded Moscow Petersburg Kiev Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union into fifteen separate countries , no longer can Russia be considered to match the distribution . This is in a careful examination ofthe very data above . Four of the top seven cities of the Soviet Union are not in Russia specifically , Kiev ( Ukraine ) and ( both in ) Three , as noted , were capital cities of republics that then became countries . Thus , we are left with the interesting situation that Soviet urbanization and industrialization provided the third link in the creation of the country distribution , but the end of the same Soviet authority has now left Russia without an ideal pattern , even though it still possesses the three expected criteria .

RUSSIAN DOMAIN URBAN GEOGRAPHY II 457 Statistics from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service display the continued lack of a match of the Rule for contemporary Russia . Here are the numbers for 2017 , as they show very substantial prediction errors . The pattern of overestimating the size of lesser cities in Russia demonstrates that Moscow might be considered a primate city . City by Rank Population Projected Rank Moscow Petersburg Did You Know ?

George was a linguist and philologist , not a geographer . The principles of equation can be applied to a variety . Also , the primate city distribution , where one city dominates all urban functions within a country , in a sense is the opposite of the distribution , for it is the absence of one or more of the three cited criteria that typically lead to the primate city distribution , where one city tends to prevail in all urban ways . Check Your Understanding An interactive or media element has been excluded from this version ofthe text . You can view it online here ?

458 JOEL QUAM AND SCOTT CAMPBELL CITED AND ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Cities and Urban Geography Russia . Seema 2003 . Increasing Unevenness in the Distribution of City Sizes in Eurasian Geography and Economics 44 ( and . 2008 . the Relationship of Urban Areas Using Land Cover Maps . Geophysical Research Letters 35 ( 17 ) Petrov , and john Adams . 1992 . Urban Geography in the Soviet Union and the United States . Edited by Craig . Translated Quam and Craig . Roman and , Inc .