Rank–size distribution

Imagine you have 10 different boxes of toys. In the first box, you have 100 toys, in the second box, you have 50 toys, and in the third box you have 25 toys. Now imagine you arrange the boxes in order from the box with the most toys to the box with the least toys.

The rank-size distribution is all about analyzing how much bigger or smaller the boxes are compared to each other. In this case, the first box is the biggest, the second box is half the size of the first, and the third box is a quarter of the size of the first.

Now imagine you have 100 boxes of toys instead of just 10. If you arrange them by size, you might start to see some patterns emerge. Maybe the biggest box is always double the size of the second biggest box, and the third biggest box is always half the size of the second biggest box.

These patterns are what scientists and economists use to study rank-size distribution. They want to understand how things (like toy boxes or cities) are distributed in terms of size, and how those sizes compare to each other. By studying the patterns, they can make predictions about future growth and development, and they can understand how these distributions affect things like economic inequality.