Subject Pursuing the socio-economic policy in regions requires understanding the processes of concentration of resources, population, enterprises in certain territories, mostly, in cities. Recent studies show increasing interest of economists in the Zipf's Law manifestation in the regional system, and cities distribution under the rank-size principle. Objectives The aims are to test the Zipf's Law in Russian cities, to support or reject the hypothesis that in Russia the Zipf coefficient depends on the size of the geographical territory of the federal district. Methods We used the least square method to analyze the Zipf's Law in Russian cities in general, and in each federal district, in particular. The sampling includes 1,123 Russian cities with population over 1,000 people in 2014. Results The Zipf's Law manifests in the entire territory of the Russian Federation. In federal districts, the Zipf coefficient ranges from -0.65 (the Far Eastern Federal District) to -0.9 (the Ural and North Caucasian Federal Districts). The analysis of the sampling of cities with population over 100 thousand people demonstrated -1.13 Zipf’s coefficient. Conclusions The test of the Zipf's Law for Russian cities shows that it is valid for small (8,600–15,300 people) and large cities (66,700–331,000 people). The Zipf's Law fails for cities with population exceeding one million people (except for the city of St. Petersburg). The study supports the hypothesis on dependence of the Zipf coefficient on the size of a federal district.
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