Assessing the Socio – Economic Rural Development Level of Golestan Province Townships Using Topsis and Entropy Methods

The level of human life has always been in progress with the development of science and human knowledge, but this growth has not been uniform in all areas and consequently different communities with different socio - economic development levels have been created. Using regional planning seems to be a necessity to reduce these inequalities. The goal of the present research is to assess and rank the socio – economic rural development level of Golestan Province townships. Entropy and TOPSIS methods were used to weight the criteria and prioritize the cities. Tweleve criteria in four main categories including population, transportation, welfare and healthcare were selected to measure the socio – economic rural development levels. The results showed that Gonbad Kavoos has the first rank with a coefficient of 0.92 and Bandar gaz has last rank with a coefficient of 0.12. After calculating the development rates, townships were divided into one of the high, medium, low and very low classes. Finally, sensitivity analysis with seven repetitions was implemented to ensure the consistency of the results. The results of this research can be used as a model to design proper growth and development plans for Golestan Province townships.