Published: 15 April 2019
T the present stage of socio-economic development, the study of the laws and characteristics of the location of cities in the hierarchy of spatial economic entities is becoming urgent. The purpose of the study is to analyze the theoretical concepts of spatial development of territories in domestic and foreign literature. Research methods: logical, systemic and complex analysis, classification method. The results of studies of the founder of the spatial economy I. Thünen are presented. The factors of concentration of enterprises in cities and the preconditions of the agglomeration economy developed by A. Marshall are considered. A retrospective analysis of the concepts of the new economic geography is carried out: P. Krugman, M. Fujit, E. Venables, G. Hanson, G. Garretsen and M. Scrum. A block of works dedicated to the urban agglomeration economy is highlighted. Theories of the size of the city are studied in the works of T. Gulden and A. Hammond, K. Paulsen, E. Deliktas, R. Camagni, C. Francisco and F. Lanzhiouva and others. The works of Russian scientists who created the system of economic zoning of the USSR for rational distribution are examined productive forces in the territorial space. The study revealed the incompleteness of the process of forming a theoretical and methodological system that describes the patterns of urban development in the hierarchy of spatial economic entities in Russia. The spatial aspect of the functioning of cities cannot be objectively analyzed by existing methods. The results obtained can be used as a theoretical basis in researching the Russian cities systems and to develop the urban geography theory, a subsection of geographical science with an emphasis on urban aspect.