Wholesale Agglomeration in Cities

Abstract

In this paper, the author tried to reveal characteristic function and hierarchy of ranks of cities where estabishments and wholesale employees are concentrated, and explain spatial stucture of networks of wholesaling, by analyzing distribution of plants of great general trading companies. The results of the analysis are as follows.(1) It has become more remarkably that wholesale employees are concentrating in the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya Metropolitan Regions. Above all, the employees aggromerating in these regions are about 39per cent and the employees in Tokyo are 21per cent of Japan.(2) Hierarchy of ranks of the sales amount of wholesaling in cities looks like ranks of the scale of population. These cities are classified into four categories.National center: Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya (employees: Tokyo-750, 000, Osaka-400, 000 and Nagoya-70, 000)Regional center: Sapporo, Fukuoka, Sendai, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kobe and Yokohama (emplyees: more than 50, 000)Prefectural capital and the other major cities (employees: more than 10, 000), 41 citiesLocal center: the cities have employees less than 10, 000 and over 1, 000 about 60 cities. (647 cities in Japan)(3) Various distributions of many establishments and branches of nine great general trading companies were divided into two types. The one is the pattern of general distribution center which are nodal points in networks of wholesaling activities. The other is the pattern of the branch of the head quarter located in industrial region or textile industry zone.