Walter Christaller

Walter Christaller (1893–1969) was a German geographer who developed central place theory to explain settlement size, spacing, and hierarchy.

Central place theory: A theory explaining how settlements form hierarchies by supplying goods and services to surrounding areas. Christaller formulated this model to account for the spacing and relative size of settlements.
Central place: A settlement that provides goods and services to people in its surrounding area. Christaller treated settlements as centers serving local populations.
August Lösch: A German economist who developed a flexible theory of economic regions and market areas. Lösch revised central place ideas by allowing more varied market patterns.
Rank-size rule: An empirical pattern in which a city’s population is roughly the largest city’s population divided by its rank. It describes city-size distributions, unlike Christaller’s account of service hierarchies and spacing.
Southern Germany: A region of Germany encompassing states such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Christaller used settlements in this region to develop and test his theory.
Threshold population: The minimum number of customers needed to sustain a good, service, or business. Different services require different customer bases, producing settlements of unequal rank.
Regional planning: The coordination of land use, infrastructure, and development across a region. Planners have used settlement hierarchies to organize services and facilities.
Primate city: A city disproportionately larger and more influential than other cities in its country. Urban systems dominated by one primate city depart from Christaller’s balanced hierarchy.
Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland: Christaller’s 1933 book introducing central place theory through an analysis of southern German settlements. This is the work in which Christaller first presented his model.
Range of a good: The maximum distance consumers will travel to obtain a good or service. The range sets the outer limit of a central place’s market area.

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