Abstract The proper delimitation of planning regions is a critical issue in the success of regional plans, and it constitutes a rich domain of research. In this paper, it is argued that planning regions should be based on functional regions– if the main intention is to increase the driving power of the people behind the planning process. Within this context, the aims of this paper are twofold: (1) to develop an algorithm (FRGIS) for the delimitation of planning regions on the bases of functional regions, and to implement it by using the scripting facilities available in Free and Open Source Software for Geographic Information Systems (GIS); and (2) to delimit the planning regions in Turkey by using FRGIS and the script developed for this purpose, by employing the commuting flows occurring between districts in the case country (Turkey) in 2010. The results show that FRGIS is successful in terms of the formation of spatially-balanced regions having higher levels of self-containment compared to those of existing regions. Nevertheless, it is also evident from this study that a combination of the nomothetic and ideographic methods of science is inevitable if functional regions are to be employed as planning regions.

中文翻译：

---

基于功能区域的规划区域划分：一种算法及其在土耳其的实现

摘要规划区域的合理划界是区域规划成功的关键问题，构成了一个研究领域。在本文中，有人认为，规划区域应基于功能区域，如果其主要目的是增加规划过程背后人们的驱动力。在这种情况下，本文的目标是双重的：（1）开发一种基于功能区域来划定计划区域的算法（FRGIS），并使用免费和开放源代码中提供的脚本工具来实现该算法地理信息系统软件（GIS）；（2）通过使用FRGIS和为此目的开发的脚本来界定土耳其的规划区域，方法是利用案例国家（土耳其）在2010年发生的地区之间的通勤流量。结果表明，相对于现有区域而言，FRGIS在形成具有更高自包含水平的空间平衡区域方面是成功的。但是，从这项研究中也可以明显看出，如果要将功能区域用作规划区域，则必须将科学的常态和表意方法相结合。