Hierarchy of Rural Localities in the Niakhar Area (Fatick, Senegal)

Abstract

Although the study of the hierarchy of localities presents an important social and economic stake, studies focused on the hierarchy of rural localities are relatively weak, especially in Africa. It is important to highlight the hierarchy of rural areas in order to reveal poles that can support sustainable growth. Our main objective is to study the hierarchy of rural localities in the Niakhar area, using a geographic approach. The data come from the Niakhar demographic, epidemiological and environmental observatory database and the Niakhar Atlas project of the French Research Institute for Development (IRD). The net flow method, the primacy index, the median population threshold method and the measurement of the correlation between level of centrality and population size are used to analyze the data. Our study allowed us to determine the main types of centrality and to establish the hierarchy of rural localities in the Niakhar zone. It also highlighted the strong correlation between the rank of localities and the size of the population of the latter. The main contribution of our work is to have highlighted, in order, the structuring localities of the rural space of the Niakhar area, by combining several indicators of centrality.