Introduction: Promoting villages to towns is among the prominent characteristics of urbanization in few past decades and remains as a major challenge facing managers, policymakers and urban planners, particularly in developing countries. In Iran, one of the growing impacts of rapid urbanization on the spatial structure of country is growing the number of urban centers via transformation villages to small towns. Changes in the criteria for separating villages from cities have led to increasing in number of cities from 520 in late 1991 to 1,167 in 2012. In fact, the main objectives of facilitating the promotion of villages to towns are Improving quality of life, better facilities and services and optimizing the gaps between political systems and eliminating or reduction economic and social inequalities between urban and rural areas, as well as coordinating a balanced development tool for rural and urban settlements.