Truncated lognormal distributions and scaling in the size of naturally defined population clusters [article]

Alvaro Corral, Frederic Udina, Elsa Arcaute
2019 arXiv   pre-print
Using population data of high spatial resolution for a region in the south of Europe, we define cities by aggregating individuals to form connected clusters. The resulting cluster-population distributions show a smooth decreasing behavior covering six orders of magnitude. We perform a detailed study of the distributions, using state-of-the-art statistical tools. By means of scaling analysis we rule out the existence of a power-law regime in the low-population range. The
more » ... f-variation test allows us to establish that the power-law tail for high population, characteristic of Zipf's law, has a rather limited range of applicability. Instead, lognormal fits describe the population distributions in a range covering from a few dozens individuals to more than one million (which corresponds to the population of the largest cluster).
arXiv:1910.01036v1 fatcat:2jjcztl2tbgrxgoaev4cwwmphy