World centralities for political, demographic and market purposes.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the political, demographic and market centralities of the world through distance-type models. The concept of world centralities to be used is based on the theory of central places. The explanatory variables of the political model are the physical distances between countries. The explanatory variables of the demographic model are the physical distances between countries and the population. The explanatory variables of the market model are the physical distances between countries, their incomes, and an indicator of closeness. The empirical findings have been quite expressive in each case. Interestingly, the world political centre is located between Rome and Athens, the world demographic centre is in the Middle East (mainly its eastern part), and the world market centre is still in the USA, although big emergent countries seem to be closing the gap. The paper shows the potential of the analytical instruments of spatial theory when applied to the world level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]