an analysis of spatial organization in southern coastal cities of iran

the aim of this paper is to examine and analyze the spatial distribution of population in cities of the southern coastal region of iran by using common models and techniques in the field and to study the trends of evolution in a time period of 40 years (1345-1385). models used in the study can be classified into three main groups. the first group is the primate city indexes (including jefferson’s model, kinsberg’s model of two and four cities, mahta’s model of four cities, and mumao and alosabi’s model), the second is concentration indexes (including hernfindals index of concentration, handerson’s index and and taghvaee’s index) and finally equilibrium indexes (including lorenz trend, gini coefficient, entropy coefficient, pareto coefficient and kernel method). this case study is done in cities of the southern coastal regions of iran (including khouzestan, boushehr, hormozgan, and sistan and baluchestan provinces) in a time period of 1345-1385. the results show that the primate city indexes and concentration indexes were at the maximum level in 1355 in this time period while the equilibrium indexes are skewed. the primate city indexes decrease in the time period of 1355-1375 while they increase in 1385. the concentration indexes are decreasing and so the equilibrium indexes in a time period of 1365-1375 is increasing while this trend is moving towards the concentration and disequilibration in 1385. key words: spatial organization, urban system, southern coastal region, urban primacy, urban concentration, spatial balance