抄録
This paper presents an expanded definition for measuring geometric attributes such as size, shape and location in irregular zones. The expanded definition involves identifying size with area, shape with edge roughness or smoothness and compactness, location with number of adjacent zones and distance to the central zone. A zone which has special geometric attributes and keeps significant spatial correlation and spatial interaction closely to adjacent zones is called prominent zone in regional science. The prominence of zone can be measured by prominence index which is a stationary distribution of Markov chains transition matrix identical to a spatial weight matrix. In this study, spatial clusters composed of prominent zones are extracted using by K-means cluster analysis, and relations between prominence and geometric attributes of irregular zones are showed by correlation analysis. This study reveals that prominence index and geometric attributes provide effective measurements to evaluate prominence of irregular zones.
