Frankdieter Grimm

Abstract

Investigations on the interactions of cities and their hinterlands have been carried on at the Geographical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in the last few years. The following report gives an introduction to some as-sumptions and evaluations at the beginning of this research work. The report is limited to one important type of centres: regional centres, because the hin-terland relations of these centres (including those of higher rank) are of main interest for the territorial planners in our country.The concentrated effort of the economic geographical team in Leipzig since the Szymbark meeting has led to many new results. In the meantime a new level of knowledge on the interactions of centres with their hinterlands in the GDR and of the hinterland has been achieved. The main results of these investigations since the Szymbark meeting are as follows:

• analyses of the existing interactions between all towns in the GDR above 5000 inhabitants and their hinterlands;
• classification of all towns above 5000 inhabitants according to the importance for their hinterland;
• determination and modelling of the different zones of influence within the hinterlands, considering mainly traffic facilities, commuting, administra-tive boundaries.

Some of these new results have been already published in German, other publications have been prepared. They are listed at the end of the article.

Frankdieter Grimm, Institute of Geography. Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Leipzig. GDR