With all the diversity of studies of single-industry towns’ development problems, little attention has been given to the quality of statistical data: neither the selective character of official statistics nor the difference between a single-industry town and a municipality are taken into account. The latter makes it impossible to use mathematical methods to simulate the spatial development of towns. The purpose of the current research is to identify the problems of assessment for regions with high concentration of monotowns and to introduce some ways of improving the quality of data by using the case of the Kemerovo region. Research methods include collection and grouping of data on the single-industry towns of the Kemerovo region taking into account the administrative-territorial division of the region, the construction of the logarithmic model of distribution of cities and towns according to the «rank-size» rule and evaluation compliance of the received distribution with the Zipf rule. As a result of research, the author proposes directions of improvement of data on towns and obtained results. In particular, the study specifies the conformity of Kuzbass towns to the Zipf law. The results can be applied in the field of forecasting and management of single-industry towns’ development at the regional level.