The size distributions of all Indian cities

Abstract

We apply five distributions–lognormal, double-Pareto lognormal, lognormal-upper tail Pareto, Pareto tails-lognormal, and Pareto tails-lognormal with differentiability restrictions–to estimate the size distribution of all Indian cities. Since India contains numerous small cities, it is important to explicitly model the lower-tail behavior for studying the distribution of all Indian cities. Our results rigorously confirm, using both graphical and formal statistical tests, that among these five distributions, Pareto tails-lognormal is a better suited parametrization of the Indian city size data, verifying that the Indian city size distribution exhibits a strong reverse Pareto in the lower tail, lognormal in the mid-range body, and Pareto in the upper tail.