Belorussia: the demographic transition and the settlement network in the 1980s

Changes in the pattern of settlement in the Belorussian SSR, one of the constituent republics of the USSR, over the past 25 years is reviewed. The author suggests that Belorussia during this period has gone through the evolutionary process described in the demographic transition model. "The model outlines the changes in birth and death rates and their evolution over time in response to improved medical facilities, resulting in an increase of population of a region or country. At the same time the process of industrialization is accompanied by urbanization, which Belorussia has experienced in the period since 1959." A review of contemporary Soviet thinking on rural and urban settlement networks is included