Central Place Theory

Developed by human geographer Walter Christaller, central place theory is designed to explain the spatial distribution of human settlements. Central places are settlements providing services to their surrounding “market areas”. The ordering of settlements based on the number and level of services they provide produces a hierarchy. Like the left-hand diagram, hierarchies are often complicated because market areas (shown as solid and broken lines) of different-order settlements overlap. This basic model, developed by Walter Christaller, has been refined by various researchers, notably August Lösch, to take account of complicating factors, such as the varying topography of a region. The result is less regular patterns, such as the Löschian landscape shown on the right.

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Economic Geography; Human Geography; Urban Geography; Geography; Central Place Theory; Lösch, August; Christaller, Walter; Settlement Patterns

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