Hierarchical forms of inequality in reality: in search of regularities and problems of explanation

The paper is devoted to the problems of study of environmental systems, especially to geographic systems. There is a strong focus on a search for regularities in the differentiation of real systems and on a discussion of possible explanatory principles of these regularities. Above all, there is a summary of the results of the research focused in this way at the socio-geographic centre of the Faculty of Science of Charles University. The research is based on the ideas and empirical generalizations of Jaromír Korčák. Eighty years have already passed since Professor Korčák published his study about two basic types of arrangement of mass phenomena in reality: a relative homogeneity of generic systems of elements on the one hand and asymmetric (hierarchical) differentiation of environmental systems on the other.