Urban Centres and their Theoretic Spheres of Influence in the Great Hungarian Plain

Abstract

In this paper we tried to border the spheres of influence of the towns in the Alföld (Great Hungarian Plain). Because of the special settlement network of the Alföld (towns with very large administrative area, lack of villages, tanya system, etc.) the every day connections between the settlements are very difficult, and because of it, it was interesting to examine these connections in a theoretical way, with the gravity model. With the gravity model we could border the spheres of influences of the towns, as well as the "real" or functional urban centres of the Alföld, those centres, which have enough villages which in its sphere of influence. It was interesting to compare the theoretical spheres of influences and the statictical micro-regions, and compare the theoretical spheres of influence together by area, population and the number of settlements. We could use different model-variations with the distances counted by air or on route, and different variations to specify the "real" urban centres.