Research On Iran's Urban System

Iran is the most prominent country in the Middle East,possessing abundant resources of petroleum and natural gas,and an important strategic position.As a result of the increasing cooperation in economic trade and the close exchanges of policy and culture, more and more scholars have carried out researches on Iran from the different aspects. Current researches are concentrated on policy,economy,history,culture...etc., however,few has researched on Iran's urban system.It's necessary for the overall understanding of economy and society in Iran to research on Iran's urban system.For these reasons,many researches are undertaken on the urban system in Iran in the paper.The study brings to several main conclusions as followed:Firstly,based on various mathematical models,it is predicted that,by 2010,Iran will have a population of seventy-three million,four hundred sixty-four thousand and five hundred,of which the urban population will amount to fifty-one million,six hundred eighty-one thousand and six hundred,and the level of urbanization will reach 70.35%;while by 2020,Iran population will total eighty-four million,twenty hundred fifty-two thousand and seven hundred,and with the urban population increasing to sixty-five million,four hundred sixty-four thousand and three hundred,the level of urbanization will show a growth to 77.70%.Secondly,it is revealed the primacy indexes are much greater than that in the standard. There are scarce large and medium cities with large enough scales in Iran.Super-cities perform a prominent comprehensive function,while most of cities are belonging to resource-based sort with sole function of discursive divisions and indistinctive features.Thirdly,by the grey relation analysis of spatial structure of urban system,the paper ranks 10 factors of Iran's natural environment and social economy in effects on the spatial structure of Iran's urban system,from which the result indicates the most important factors for it are subsequently population density,traffic network and per capita water supply. Fourthly,12 indexes about gross amounts,equal amounts and relative amounts are chosen in view of Iran's economy,population,society and public infrastructure as basic variables to separately measure the levels of comprehensive urbanization of 30 Iran's provinces through principal components analysis and go on to categorize 30 Iran's provinces in the light of four degrees of comprehensive urbanization.The classification finally registers that Iran's urban experiences a rather unbalanced development.Fifthly,it suggests giving a full play of different strategies of urbanization in different regions.Considering the basic conditions of current Iranian urbanization and future possible trend of development,in the long term,the development of Iranian urbanization must adhere to the policy of unbalanced development to select regions with good economic foundation,promising area advantage and relatively dense population.The process of urbanization should be achieved by being concentrated on the development of a complex of central cities having economic growth poles formed.Meanwhile these central cities should be connected depending on traffic network and bring long their fellow towns with high complementary for mutual benefit.Three characteristics of the paper are as below:To begin with,it is in innovative terms to select the topic.In China there is little devotion of scholars to the research on Iran's urban system,even though it's necessary for the overall understanding of economy and society in Iran.Since plenty of information and materials were quoted from foreign websites,I was working very hard in collecting and processing them for further study.Moreover,it adopts objective research methods.The original data are processed and refined based on mathematic models of the quantitative geography and the technology of EXCEL,SPSS as well as some other practical mathematical tool.The conclusions are arrived at according to the data output through the process of analysis software.The approaches of the quantitative geography includes:Linear regression analysis,Stage equal growth analysis,Gray syetem analysis,Gray relation analysis,Principal components analysis...etc.Last but not least,it is demonstrated in a diverse form.The research exercises the technology of painting as well as Information Geography System such as R2V,ArcGis, Photoshop and so on to process the data of maps scanned directly or downloaded form internet,on the basis of which,many new elements related to the topic are added to perfect the research.It is illustrated in a combined form of characters coupled with data tables and color pictures in order to fulfill an incredible intuitive effect.The thesis is divided into following four parts:The first part of the thesis includes chapter 1 and chapter 2.Both in theory and practice, urban system at home and abroad is reviewed,and the reason,objective,method and purpose of the study are explained.The second part of the thesis includes chapter 3 and chapter 4.Following the description the present population in Iran,the thesis predicts Iran's population and urbanization rates for 2010 and 2020,by adopting methods of Linear regreession prediction,Stage equal growth prediction and Gray syetem prediction.Through serious judgment of the geographical position,natural and economical conditions of present Iran's urban system,the research lays a solid foundation for the further analysis.The third part of the thesis is the most important part,and includes the chapter 5,6, 7 and 8.Based on bountiful qualitative and quantitative methods,the thesis makes an in-depth analysis in hierarchical scale structure,functional structure,spatial structure and network structure,which are specifically as follows:In chapter 5,describing the relations and characteristics of the urban hierarchical scale structure,and caculating 2 primacy indexes,4 primacy indexes and 11 primacy indexes of Iran's national and provincial population,the results shows:The primacy indexes are much greater than that in the standard and primate cities monopolize the regional economy,leading to unbalanced development of the regional economy.In chapter 6,describing the spatial structure characteristics of the Iran's urban system,ranking 10 factors of Iran's natural environment and social economy in effects on the spatial structure of Iran's urban system by the gray relation analysis,the result indicates the most important factors for it are population density,traffic and per capita water supply.In chapter 7,describing functional structure of Iran's urban system,reckoning the average and standard error of prov ncial employed population in major industries,thereby the economic functions of all provinces are assigned. In chapter 8,it carries out studies on the Iranian networks of railway,highway,pipeline and harbour by analysis of network structure and mastery of various traffic and transport datas.The last part of the thesis includes chapter 9,chapter10 and chapter 11.In chapter 9, 12 indexes about gross amounts,equal amounts and relative amounts are choosed according to Iran's economy,population,society and public infrastructure as basic variables to measure the levels of comprehensive urbanization of 30 Iran's provinces through principal components analysis and go on to categorize 30 Iran's provinces and arrange their orders finally.In Chapter 10,according to Iranian comprehensive urbanization levels,the proper measures are put forward to promote the development of Iran's urban system.In chapter 11, the summary of the research results is given,and both the features of the research and the problem to be resolved are proposed in the end of the paper.