Hiérarchies urbaines comparées en Méditerranée : 1960-2000

The aim of this paper is to study the relation between economic development and urban hierarchies?<np pagenum="302"/> evolutions in the Mediterranean from 1960 to 2000. The paper clearly demonstrates that the countries with a higher income per capita (France, Spain, Italy) have a less hierarchical city-size distribution, where medium-size cities play an important role in the country?s demographics. On the opposite, the new developing countries? (Turkey, Egypt, Morocco) urban hierarchies are characterized by higher concentration of urban population within the largest cities. These results confirm an inverse U-shaped curve for the relation between urban hierarchies? dynamics and the level of economic development.