Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Cities' Areas of Influence in Brazil

Since 1966, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has been carrying on a research on the Brazilian network of cities. The project is called REGIC - Regiões de Influência de Cidades (which I would poorly translate as " Cities' Areas of Influence ").

They have recently made available the vector files (shape files) of the latest edition of the research (2007).

Brazilian network of cities (1966 - 2007)
how to make a gif(images credit: REGIC - IBGE)


The methodology used in this research has changed a lot from its first edition in 1966. The latest 2007 edition, however, is pretty much excellent. The authors address the Brazilian network and hierarchy of cities based on a massive data set. It incorporates all sort of spatial connections such as:

  • Federal public administration
  • Business management
  • Passengers transport (flight and Road connections)
  • Bank branches
  • Education institutions
  • Health services
  • Density of Internet domains
  • Television networks and even Destination of agricultural production (I bet I have forgotten something)


shameless self promotion moment: The Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) has recently organized a book that provides some good insights on this issue. The book is entitled "Urban-Regional Dynamics - Urban Network and its Interfaces" (my poor translation again).