ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the spatial dynamics of China’s city system by applying the Pareto law of city-size distribution. Based on 1985 and 1999 city-level data, it finds that Chinese cities are quite evenly distributed and the intercity concentration declined in the 1980s and 1990s. The chapter also finds that the Pareto law fits the Chinese data quite well. Several factors have contributed to the rapid urban growth and changes in urban systems in the past two decades. The recent industrialization of China’s economy has created many job opportunities in cities and attracted many rural workers to migrate into urban areas. The urban sector reform has relaxed many rural-urban migration restrictions and resulted in a huge influx of rural workers in cities. The open-door policy and foreign direct investment have also helped China to become more urbanized, especially in the coastal areas. The government’s urban policy and the inclusion of many new cities have affected Chinese citysize distributions.
