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The problems were rose by the growth of big cities, population density and rural immigration causes that planners attended to growth and fortification of small towns. They believe that fortification of small town can changes the direction of rural immigrations and decrease many problems in rural areas that arising inappropriate accessibility to service centers. In Iran, the policy of change village to town has been implemented in few recent decades. Roniz town which changed to town in 1990 is located in Estahban County (Fars province). This paper presented the role and function of Roniz town as small town center in development rural areas. According to with using 5 functions and 20 variables and using network analysis we studied the flow and relationship between rural and urban settlements in two periods before and after change of Roniz to town. The results of studies indicate the town had the key role (central place) in servicing to rural settlements and decreased dependency of villages to big and medium cities in the province level.
KeywordS: Small town, Rural development, Network analysis, Urban-rural relationships, Roniz town