The Size Distribution of Cities and Determinants of City Growth in Turkey

The aim of this study is two-fold. Firstly, this study examines the size distribution of cities by using Zipf's law. The second objective of this study is to investigate the effects of determinants of urban growth in Turkey by using the data for the 1980–2007 time period. The main findings of the study show that there is some evidence that Zipf's law holds in Turkey. Moreover, according to the rank-minus-half rule, the results suggest stronger support for Zipf's law in size distribution of the cities. Furthermore, the regression results indicate that fertility rate, location of the city, migration, agglomeration in services and specialization in manufacturing industry have positive impact, whereas schooling rate has a negative effect on growth of the urban population regarding Turkey.