This paper introduces an entropy maximization model to assess settlement systems in the Shahrizor plain. In the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC, settlements in the Shahrizor plain are likely affected by a political situation in which the region transformed from being a central region of a small state to that which was a border zone between larger states. In the early 1st millennium, this picture transforms and this region now becomes part of a larger province that is well integrated into the Neo-Assyrian provincial system. We present a model that assesses how such political transformations likely affect settlement size patterns and hierarchies, including introducing methodology that can forecast potential regions of settlement. Results demonstrate how both dispersed populations and those in which highly nucleated sites and populations likely emerge, including why the dispersed pattern is likely more plausible for the Shahrizor region in the first half of the first millennium BC. This link provides data and model used and discussed in this paper.