A comparison of city size distributions for China and India from 1950 to 2010

- We analyze the size distribution of Chinese and Indian cities for 1950-2010.
- We consider lognormal, Pareto, and general Pareto distributions.
- Lognormal characterizes both country's city size distribution in the early periods.
- Pareto represents the Chinese city size distribution in 2010.
- Indian size distribution in 2000 and 2010 follows Zipf.

We examine the distributions of Chinese and Indian city sizes for seven decades (1950s to 2010s) using lognormal, Pareto, and general Pareto distributions. We ascertain which distribution fits the data and how the city size distributions change during these periods. The Chinese city size distribution is represented by lognormal in the early periods (1950-1990) and by Pareto in 2010, but is not characterized by Zipf, which could be attributed to Chinese government's restrictions of migration from rural to urban areas and the one-child policy. In contrast, the Indian city size distribution transitions from lognormal in the earlier periods to Zipf in the later periods.