A periodic table of spatial hierarchies

Michael J. Woldenberg

pp. 429-456

in: Stephen Gale, Gunnar Olsson (eds), Philosophy in geography, Berlin, Springer, 1979

Abstract

Spatial systems may be organized hierarchically so that large high order areas in a system may collect flows from, or deliver flows to, small low order areas in the system. Examples at a geographical spatial scale are rivers, alpine glaciers and central place systems. Examples in the organic realm are at a much smaller scale, i.e., trees, blood vessels, airways, bile ducts, and even the microscopic branching of the Purkinje cell in the brain.