AbstractsGeography &GIS

Among the location theories that geographers have devised in the past thirty years, the most influential has probably been Walter Christaller'd Central Place Theory (11, 12, 27). Its main point is that a certain amount of productive land supports an urban center, and the center exists because essential services must be performed for the surrounding land (25:203). Theoretically, a hierarchy of such centers exists, ranging from hamlets to metropolises with their distribution throughout a region following an hexagonal pattern. Many of Christaller's basic premises have been subatantiated by the work of numerous geographers (11, 25:203). Most of these works, however, have been carried out in regions of fairly uniform conditions of topography, climate, agricultural economy, and cultural background. Consequently, it is generally admitted that lack of uniformity in any of those conditions can modify the basic pattern (25:207). To the eyes of the cultural geographer, the emphasis on economic factors relegates unduly on the background important cultural factors. [...]