A Hierarchical Allometric Scaling Analysis of Chinese Cities: 1991–2014

Figure 5

The hierarchical scaling relationships between population size, built-up area, and number of Chinese cities in 2010. [Note. The small circles represent top classes and the lame-duck classes. The slopes based on the scaling ranges indicate the fractal parameters of city-size and area distributions. The ratio of the size dimension D to the area dimension is an approximate value of the allometric scaling exponent .]

(a) Population size

(b) Urban area