Struktur und Entwicklung des Städtesystems in den Kleinstaaten Zentralamerikas und ihre Bedeutung für den regionalen Entwicklungsprozeß

Abstract

After a short introduction showing the significance of urbanization and socio-economic development, the spatial distribution and recent growth of cities in Central America is outlined, considering the individual historical, geographical and political aspects (cf. Fig.1). This poses the question of basic characteristics of the structure and development of city systems in small countries and of their impact on regional development. Census population figures for cities of more than 3000 inhabitants are carefully analysed and arranged in a comparable way. Based upon these statistics, rank-size diagrams are plotted for empirical city distributions and hypothetical graphs according to ZIPF and PARETO (cf. Fig. 4-7). The city size distributions are discussed and compared with the results of similar studies. The findings show the expected primate distributions for small developing countries, but they do not give any hints that with proceeding development primacy gives way to a more regular urban hierarchy, as is assumed by some authors. Finally, the reasons for the declining importance of small and intermediate cities, and the increasing dominance of capital cities are discussed with respect to their significance for regional development and the necessity of new urban policies.