Question

What is the population of the fourth largest city in a country where the rank-size rule applies, if the largest city is one million (1,000,000) in population?

Answer 1

What is the population of the fourth largest city in a country where the rank-size rule applies, if the largest city is one million (1,000,000) in population?

a. 250,000

b. 333,333

c. 500, 000

d. 666,667

Answer:

a. 250000

Explanation:

This question links to applied human geography of cities & urban land use it shows a models of urban hierarchies where the right tool of population measurement is the rank-size rule.

The rank size rule helps us understand that the nth largest city in a given country can be calculated by understanding that the integer of interest can be used to divide largest city's population. In this case of the nth population of the population of the largest city in a given country is equal to 1/n of the population of the largest city in a given country.

Thus, like in the question the largest city in a given country has a population of 1,000,000, yet we seek to find the population of the fourth largest city in the given country.

According to the formula above;

nth= I/n × population of largest city

4th = 1/4 × 1000000

4th largest city= 250000 people

Hence the 4th largest city has a population of 250000 people in it.

Answer 2

• Answer:

The fourth largest city will have a population of 250,000

Explanation:

Rank Size Rule is a simple model which states that population size of a given city tends to be equal to the population of the largest city divided by the rank of the given city

The rank size rule states that the nth largest city in a given country will have $\frac{1}{n}$ of the population of the largest city in that country. If the largest city has a population 1,000,000, and we want to know the population of the fourth largest city, it will have $\frac{1}{4}$ of the population of the largest city.

From the question,

Fourth (4th) largest city population = $\frac{1}{4} x \frac{1,000,000}{1}$

= $\frac{1,000,000}{4}$

=250,000