Some Notes Concerning Regional Concepts and Regional Methods

Abstract

Contents
I. Foreword
II. Review of Regional Concepts
III. Integration of Regional Methods
IV. Nodality of Cities
V. Concluding Remarks
Geographers are all concerned with regional concepts. There are at least two kind of regions. These are uniform and functional in character. The city region, for example, is a combination of unlike areas which are functionally bound together in the focusing of establishments located peripherally upon establishments in the core. Such functional regions of human organization possess regionality as well as nodality.
The purpose of this paper is to outline and discuss an approach to the regional study making use of both concepts concurrently and to explore the future possibility of applying System Analysis, Data Bank and Computer Mapping for the geographical research. Such use is capable of increasing the conformity of regional concepts to reality, thus reducing their arbitrary quality and improving both their significance and utility.
The author would like to dedicate this paper to celebrate the sixtith birthday of Dr. Shinzo KIUCHI who has given me stimulating criticisms and constructive advices as a supervisor of my doctoral dissertation.