中国城市规模分布的形态和演化与城市增长模式——基于Zipf定律与Gibrat定律的分析

鉴于以往研究较少关注城市规模分布形态的规模差异性和城市规模分布演化与城市增长模式之间的关联,论文基于1953—2010年中国6次人口普查数据,选择了全部城市(包含地级市市区和县级市)和地级市(地级市市区)2种样本组,对中国城市位序规模分布的形态特征、演变趋势及其与Gibrat定律间的关系进行了实证分析。结果显示,中国的城市规模分布主体符合Zipf定律的线性分布,但两端即小城市和超大城市因规模不足而偏离线性分布,这一现象也得到全球各国证据的支持;从演化角度来看,中国城市规模分布在早期逐渐分散化并偏离Zipf定律,但从2000年开始转而向符合Zipf定律的方向回归,其中大城市率先在1990年就开始了转向,与这一阶段城市人口随机增长表现出耦合性,从而验证了Zipf定律和Gibrat定律的逻辑一致性。该发现对于促进中国城市规模分布高质量发展具有重要启示。

The form and evolution of city size distribution and urban growth model in China:An analysis based on Zipf's Law and Gibrat's Law

Based on the data of permanent residents from six national population census of China over the period 1953-2010, this study conducted an empirical analysis on the size heterogeneity of city size distribution and the relationship between the evolution of city size distribution and city growth model, to which little attention was paid in previous studies. We selected all cities (including prefecture-level cities and county-level cities) and prefecture-level cities (city propers) alone as samples, and empirically analyzed the morphological characteristics and evolution trends of urban rank-size distribution in China and its relationship with Gibrat's Law. The results show that the main body of city size distribution in China conforms to the linear distribution of Zipf's Law. However, the two ends of the city size distribution spectrum, namely small cities and megacities, deviate from the linear distribution due to insufficient sizes. This phenomenon is not unique to China, but supported by evidence from other countries of the world. From the perspective of evolution, the city size distribution in China gradually dispersed and deviated from Zipf's Law in the early stage. However, from 2000, it began to return to the direction in line with Zipf's Law, with big cities taking the lead in 1990, which shows the coupling with the random growth of urban population in this stage and verifies the logical consistency between Zipf's Law and Gibert's Law. The findings of this study have important implications for promoting the high-quality development of city size distribution in China.