Ruiz, Ricardo Machado (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Faculdade de Ciências Econômicas. Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional).

Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo); volume 35, número 4, páginas 715-737. Dezembro 2005.

urban structure;

primacy;

Zipf's Law;

Pareto distribution;

urban economy;

regional economy.

The literature on urban economics usually point out the developing countries as those ones with urban structure extremely concentrated and unequal, and the developed countries as those countries with a better distribution of cities. This paper compares the national urban structures of two countries: the USA, a developed country, and Brazil, a developing country.