  A mere hyperbolic law, like the Zipf's law power function, is often
inadequate to describe rank-size relationships. An alternative theoretical
distribution is proposed based on theoretical physics arguments starting from
the Yule-Simon distribution. A modeling is proposed leading to a universal
form. A theoretical suggestion for the "best (or optimal) distribution", is
provided through an entropy argument. The ranking of areas through the number
of cities in various countries and some sport competition ranking serves for
the present illustrations.
