Assessing the Impacts of Rural Settlements Transformation to City on Urban System at Sub-Regional level: Case of Guilan Province Sub-Regions (1956-2016)

The emergence of new rural-towns, due to the growth of rural settlements and their identification as cities, caused many changes on social, economic and physical dimensions of these communities. These research focuses on assessing the differences in the urban system of Guilan province at the sub-regional level. The question of the research is what impact had transformation of rural settlements to city on changing of settlement system in different sub-regions in Guilan province. Differences in population density, urbanization rate, geographic-climatic and environmental structure of sub-regions, make the study of this province and its sub-regions important as a unique example. The method used in this research is descriptive-evaluative and data collection method is documentary. The study of the distribution pattern of cities in Guilan province in terms of four distinct sub-regions shows that the largest number of cities and population has been concentrated in the Sepidrood’s Western region. Transformation of rural settlements to city as a policy in sub-regions with old cities or primate-city, was more inefficient than sub-regions lacking of old cities. With this argument, it can be said that instead of applying reclassification of rural settlements to city as a planning policy, in sub-regions with old urban structure, especially with primate city domination, it is necessary to apply other policies; that developing middle-sized cities can be considered as an efficient policy.