Fractal Study on Urban Systems in the Underdeveloped Regions in West China: A Case Study in the Lanzhou-Xining Town Compact Region

In this paper, the fractal theory is used to carry out a case study on the spatial structure, scale structure and formation mechanism of urban systems in the Lanzhou-Xining town compact region, an underdeveloped region in west China. The results show that the rank-sizes distribution of the urban systems is dispersive, there is an obvious primate distribution, development of the large- and mid-sized cities is insufficient, rank-sizes of the urban systems are generally low, and the evenness of urban population distribution is poor, the spatial development degree of cities and towns is low, spatial distribution is quite uneven, decentralization is high, and the density of cities and towns away from the central cities is attenuated rapidly, the mature degree of spatial development of cities and towns is poor in some regions, and the spatial fractal characteristics are unconspicuous and even the fractal structure is not formed yet.