Abstract
This study sets out to examine the structural and spatial changes in the relative status of the hundred largest urban centers in Japan from 1880 to 1980 in relation to the development of railway network; it charts the structural changes by means of rank-size curves and rank correlation coefficients, and the spatial changes by means of descriptive maps.
We can date the structural and spatial patterns of the present urban system as well as the geographical features of the present transport network back to 1908, to a large extent to 1880, even to the era before 1868. Urban development after 1880 was not the emergence of a brand new system but rather a process of readjustment of the already existing urban system.
The major changes after 1880 were the increasing metropolitan dominance and the relative growth of the centers along the main spine of the Pacific coast. There were greater structural changes in the periods before 1908, in contrast to the periods of structural stability, with further reinforcement after 1908 of the dominance of the metropolitan areas and the main spine.
Although the periods before 1908 are characterized by the major development of the railway network, it is difficult to establish a clear spatial relationship between the newly opened lines and the urban development beside them. The railway network rather reinforced metropolitan dominance and the further growth of the centers along the main spine. If we are allowed to extend the definitions of a metropolis and main spine, to take into account of the more rapid growth of the regional centers than the three metropolitan areas after the mid-1970s and the development of the new transport networks of super highways, Shinkansen lines and air services after the 1960s, the basic trend will not change in the near future.
