Applying genetic algorithms to zone design

Genetic algorithms (GA) have been found to provide global near optimal solutions in a wide range of complex problems. In this paper genetic algorithms have been used to deal with the complex problem of zone design. The zone design problem comprises a large number of geographical tasks, from which electoral districting is probably the most well known. The electoral districting problem is described and formalized mathematically. Different problem encodings, suited to GA optimization, are presented, together with different objective functions. A practical real world example is given and tests performed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the GA approach.