2008 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 147-157
There are various types of spatial tessellations such as administrative units, electoral districts, school districts, land use, market area and climatic divisions. It often happens that there exist multiple spatial tessellations in an identical area. It is important for urban planning and understanding of urban structure to grasp relationship among spatial tessellations. This study proposes a method for quantitatively comparing spatial tessellations in an identical area. The similarity between two tessellations is evaluated by quantitative measures in this method. The indices consist of the local index and the global index. Moreover, this study proposes a method of classifying spatial tessellations and defining a representative spatial tessellation. The validity of the method is tested through the case study about area division plans of Dosyusei in Japan.