These examples demonstrate the advantage of using rank size analysis at different spatial scales for having a complete understanding of the dynamics behind the observed empirical data.
Along the way, the developers found they had enough funds in the budget to build units exceeding the minimum sizes set by the military for the various ranks, in most cases providing houses a full rank size larger.
It also compares the efficacy of rank-size distributions with the other metrics.
For cities, the law can be crudely expressed as the "rank-size rule".
We compare two networks with similar rank-size distributions that behave differently when nodes are progressively removed.
Rank-size distributions indicate the relative effect of patch size on landscape structure, and whether the size of patches differs from what is expected from the model.
At global scales, spatial networks of agricultural land use inferred from land cover products are well-described by power law rank-size distributions.
Rank-size distributions of settlements, agricultural areas and forests are all well-described by power laws spanning more than four orders of magnitude in both area and number.
Archaeologists must be particularly careful when applying rank-size analysis to a given study area as the results can change at a different spatial scale.
Results indicate that rank-size distributions and their scaling exponents are useful because they provide information not available from the other metrics.
