A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements
The shape of urban settlements plays a fundamental role in their sustainable planning. Properly defining the boundaries of cities is challenging and remains an open problem in the science of cities. Here, we propose a worldwide model to define urban settlements beyond their administrative boundaries...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2018-01-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.180468 |
| _version_ | 1819161343628935168 |
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| author | Erneson A. Oliveira Vasco Furtado José S. Andrade Hernán A. Makse |
| author_facet | Erneson A. Oliveira Vasco Furtado José S. Andrade Hernán A. Makse |
| author_sort | Erneson A. Oliveira |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The shape of urban settlements plays a fundamental role in their sustainable planning. Properly defining the boundaries of cities is challenging and remains an open problem in the science of cities. Here, we propose a worldwide model to define urban settlements beyond their administrative boundaries through a bottom-up approach that takes into account geographical biases intrinsically associated with most societies around the world, and reflected in their different regional growing dynamics. The generality of the model allows one to study the scaling laws of cities at all geographical levels: countries, continents and the entire world. Our definition of cities is robust and holds to one of the most famous results in social sciences: Zipf’s law. According to our results, the largest cities in the world are not in line with what was recently reported by the United Nations. For example, we find that the largest city in the world is an agglomeration of several small settlements close to each other, connecting three large settlements: Alexandria, Cairo and Luxor. Our definition of cities opens the doors to the study of the economy of cities in a systematic way independently of arbitrary definitions that employ administrative boundaries. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T17:10:50Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d0ccf0d71e0c43209f77a186777314fb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T17:10:50Z |
| publishDate | 2018-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-d0ccf0d71e0c43209f77a186777314fb2022-12-21T18:19:05ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032018-01-015510.1098/rsos.180468180468A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlementsErneson A. OliveiraVasco FurtadoJosé S. AndradeHernán A. MakseThe shape of urban settlements plays a fundamental role in their sustainable planning. Properly defining the boundaries of cities is challenging and remains an open problem in the science of cities. Here, we propose a worldwide model to define urban settlements beyond their administrative boundaries through a bottom-up approach that takes into account geographical biases intrinsically associated with most societies around the world, and reflected in their different regional growing dynamics. The generality of the model allows one to study the scaling laws of cities at all geographical levels: countries, continents and the entire world. Our definition of cities is robust and holds to one of the most famous results in social sciences: Zipf’s law. According to our results, the largest cities in the world are not in line with what was recently reported by the United Nations. For example, we find that the largest city in the world is an agglomeration of several small settlements close to each other, connecting three large settlements: Alexandria, Cairo and Luxor. Our definition of cities opens the doors to the study of the economy of cities in a systematic way independently of arbitrary definitions that employ administrative boundaries.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.180468science of citiesurban settlementscity clustering algorithmzipf’s law |
| spellingShingle | Erneson A. Oliveira Vasco Furtado José S. Andrade Hernán A. Makse A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements Royal Society Open Science science of cities urban settlements city clustering algorithm zipf’s law |
| title | A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements |
| title_full | A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements |
| title_fullStr | A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements |
| title_full_unstemmed | A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements |
| title_short | A worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements |
| title_sort | worldwide model for boundaries of urban settlements |
| topic | science of cities urban settlements city clustering algorithm zipf’s law |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.180468 |
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