ABSTRACT
Smith has pointed out that the fruitful application of spatial analysis to the study of regional market systems is based upon an understanding of the relationship between market organization and marketplace organization. Spatial analysis of market systems enables to understand their underlying organization on a regional level, with less of the time-consuming ethnographic analysis normally associated with market studies. Smith and others who have applied spatial analysis to the study of regional market systems have shown that it can be a powerful diagnostic tool, capable of indicating regional inequities in resource distribution, and the location and distribution of productive resources in both geographic and social class terms. The market system of the settlement area of north-eastern Santa Cruz department, in the lowlands of eastern Bolivia, resembles a primate market system dominated by the cities of Montero and Santa Cruz.
