Rank-size City Dynamics in China and India, 1981-2004

SCHAFFAR A. and DIMOU M. Rank-size city dynamics in China and India, 1981-2004, Regional Studies. By using empirical evidence based on data from India and China between 1981 and 2004, this paper studies the dynamic patterns of urban hierarchies within the two most populated countries in the world. The paper focuses on three specific issues: the distributional form of the rank-size relation, the urban growth patterns that do not reject Gibrat's law for cities, and finally the shifts in urban hierarchies for both countries over these two decades.