Zipf’s Law

Rank times frequency

An interactive lesson with 6 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Zipf's law: frequency $\propto 1/\text{rank}$.
• It describes word frequencies, city sizes and many other rankings.
• A few items dominate, followed by a long tail.

Steps

1. The most common words
2. Predicting a rank
3. Half of all text
4. The tenth word
5. Million-person cities
6. Cities