Step-by-step Up the Settlement Stairs – Socio-Economic Differences Among Settlement Hierarchical Levels in Hungary Cover Image

Fokról-fokra a települési lépcsőn – Társadalmi-gazdasági különbségek a településhierarchia-szintek között Magyarországon
Step-by-step Up the Settlement Stairs – Socio-Economic Differences Among Settlement Hierarchical Levels in Hungary

Author(s): Dániel Szilágyi
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Központi Statisztikai Hivatal

Summary/Abstract: So far several attempts have been made by researchers to classify the Hungarian settlements into hierarchical order, especially the towns by the growth of their functionality. Our classification resulted in six levels, and is based on statitstical data, which, in our opinion, are in conjunction with roles and characteristics of towns, and not only pure population numbers determine the order of towns in the hierarchy. These data cover areas like student numbers on all three levels of education, commuting balance, served population in public administration. Each town received a value through a standardization process of these data, then were divided into four groups. Budapest, the capital city is above 8 „regional” towns in terms of functionality, followed by 29 „medium” towns and the rest (308) of towns. Villages were divided into two groups by their population number, the upper class consists villages with more than 500 inhabitants This hierarchical order is represented in several indicators: many of them show a decreasing or an increasing tendency through hierarchy. Usually better economic values belong to settlement classes which are higher in the hierarchy. Settlements in same classes have a lot characteristics in common, although territorial location also affects some of their characteristics.

  • Issue Year: 55/2015
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 180-198
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Hungarian