Spatial Analysis and Prioritization of Iran Provinces for ICT Planning and Development

Nowadays ICT (Information and Communication Technology) as a new dominant paradigm of development has become the focus of all the aspects of development and progress by influencing the way of thinking and acting and changing life and work patterns and in fact it is considered as both the reason and the sign of development. Due to the growing benefits of adopting this technology in order to achieve economic, social and political goals and sustainable development, following appropriate strategies and approaches for using ICT in our country is a must. Due to the fundamental and key role of ICT in achieving sustainable development and knowing that digital divide between regions has overshadowed the spatial and geographical justice and has provoked the uneven and unbalanced development of the regions of the country, any plan or program in developing ICT in the country should be based on the studying and understanding the current situation of ICT in the regions of the country and should be used to remove or eliminate the digital divide.In this research the development of the provinces of the country in terms of ICT was examined and these provinces were rated and ranked. In order to do so, we made use of 40 indicators and unique soft wares and models like GIS, SPSS, TOPSIS, scattering coefficient, weight rating technique, linear scale-up method, Pearson coefficient and so on. The findings of the study indicated that the provinces of the country are not in a good situation in terms of ICT and Tehran province as the first rank in terms of ICT was semi-developed. There are imbalances and disparities to some extent among the provinces of the country in terms of ICT development or in other words digital divide in such a way that Tehran province as the first rank was 2.5 times more developed than the last rank (Northern- Khorasan) and in general the first rank provinces were nearly twice times more developed than the fifth rank provinces. Also, ICT development correlated with population and especially with urban percentage; meaning that generally speaking, the most facilities and usages of ICT are focused in the provinces with more population and urban percentage. At last in order to eliminate or remove digital divide and balancing long-term development, the provinces of the country were ranked for achieving ICT development.