Journal of Historical Geography, 22, 2 (1996) 129–146

A general perspective on the regionaldevelopment of Europe from 1300 to 1850

Kees Terlouw

This paper depicts the history of Europe’s regional development using data on its urbanpopulation. It shows the tenacity of the European dorsal running from northern Italynorthwestwards across Europe. It also examines the general pattern of the changes inEurope’s regional development. This is almost the reverse of the present trend favouringthe Mediterranean arc. During the period 1300–1850 the dominant position of theMediterranean regions slowly declined in favour of the northwestern part of Europe.The specific differentiation within this general trend fits remarkably well with Braudel’sdescription of the changing core of the European world-system. Besides showing thegeneral patterns of stability and change in Europe’s regional development, this paperalso maps the development of individual regions. This shows the specific regionaldifferentiation within this general pattern and demonstrates how some regions deviatefrom the general trend. 1996 Academic Press Limited

Policy-makers and scientists frequently portray the regional differentiation of Europeas a kind of “banana split”. One banana-shaped development axis starts around Londonand runs along the Rhine axis towards northern Italy. There it intersects with adeveloping zone along the north of the Mediterranean.[1] This paper compares thisimage against the history of Europe’s regional development. It uses data on urbanpopulation to reveal the persistence of Europe’s regional structure. It also shows thatthe developments in the early-modern period were almost the reverse of the presenttrend. This paper ends by depicting the regional differentiation within this long-termtrend.

The European dorsal and the Mediterranean arc

Themodernpopular image ofEurope’s regional structurebuildson astudyonEuropeancities made for the French planning agency DATAR (Delegation a l’Amenagement duTerritoire et a l’Action Regionale) under the direction of Roger Brunet.[2] His study usesdozens of indicators to differentiate among the cities of western Europe. It uses dynamicaspects, like growth and innovative capacity, to differentiate between the developed andrelatively stable European dorsal and the strongly developing Mediterranean arc. How-ever, Europe’s fundamental regional structure of an essentially continental dorsal andMediterranean arc is based on the concentration of large cities. Only the European dorsal(“Megalopole” or “Dorsale”) and the Mediterranean arc (“Nord du Sud”) have a denseurban network. In the rest of Europe the cities are more dispersed.[3] But is this new imageof Europe’s regional structure based on a new situation?

1290305–7488/96/020129+18 $18.00/0 1996 Academic Press Limited

130 KEES TERLOUW

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131EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

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133EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

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Figure 4. The changing importance of the European dorsal (Μ) and the Mediterranean arc (Β):1300–1993. [Source: own computations. R. Brunet, Les villes ‘Europeennes’ (Paris 1989). Dataon urban population form: P. Bairoch, J. Batou and P. Chevre, The Population of EuropeanCities: Data Bank and Short Summary of Results (Geneve 1988). EUROSTAT, REGIO Database

(Luxembourg 1994)].

Although discussions of the present European dorsal and Mediterranean arc fre-quently include all kinds of recent social and economic developments, they are basedon the density of large cities. This crucial role conferred to urban density enables usto make a detailed historic analysis of the development of regional differentiation withinEurope. Urban development is a good indicator of regional development. Cities reflect,as the crossroads of both small- and large-scale interaction, the internal and externalcapacity of regions for development.[4] This paper uses the most thorough database onthe population of European cities collected under the direction of Bairoch.[5] Thisdatabase provides for the period 1300–1850 reasonably accurate data for the 2204European cities that had at least during a part of this period more than 5000 inhabitants.[6]

Depicting the present and the past distribution of the urban population gives a firstimpression on the development of Europe’s regional structure. Figure 1 maps thepopulation size of cities in the European Union with more than 50 000 inhabitants in1993. Figure 2 depicts the population size for cities with over 5000 inhabitants in 1600.It delineates, like Figure 1, also the European dorsal and the Mediterranean arc.[7] Ofthe present 739 large cities of the European Union, 290 are in the European dorsaland 76 in the Mediterranean arc. In Bairoch’s database 1605 cities are in the current(1993) EU, from which 476 are in the European dorsal, and 168 in the Mediterraneanarc. A comparison of Figures 1 and 2 suggests that this basic structure of concentrationin the European dorsal and Mediterranean arc already existed in 1600, even withoutconsidering Switzerland and Austria which were included in Brunet’s original study.At least there appears hardly any substantial difference between 1600 and 1993. Onlythe intermediate zone connecting the northern and southern centres of development inEurope was even less developed in the past than in the present.

When we also consider changes, this impression of historical continuity alters. Figure 3depicts the changes in Europe’s urban population between 1300 and 1600 in absolutenumbers. It suggests that in the past (1300–1600) the Mediterranean arc was not azone of development, but of stagnation. Figure 4, which shows the relative importanceof the European dorsal and the Mediterranean arc, supports this interpretation.

Figures 1 to 4 show that the European dorsal is no new phenomenon, but has strong

134 KEES TERLOUW

historical roots. However, the Mediterranean arc was less visible in the past. Figure 2shows that there was a zone of developed cities along the Mediterranean, but this zonewas much larger. It included southern Italy and southern Spain. Not only was it widerthan the present “Sunbelt”, but it was also in the past not a zone of development, butof relative decline. Figure 4 shows that the recent positive development of this areacontrasts with the past. It contrasts with its lapse in the late Middle Ages, and itsrelative decline in the eighteenth century. Current explanations on the rise of theMediterranean “Sunbelt” focusing on a post-modern production process must beaugmented with an understanding of its sunny pre-modern past. Regional developmentis a structural phenomenon, deeply rooted in history. The current rise of the Medi-terranean arc is a reversal of its past decline. This observation must be included in anystudy of the present rise of the Mediterranean arc and its possible future expansiontowards southern Italy and southern Spain.

Urban centre of gravity

Figure 2 showed the former importance of the cities of the Mediterranean. Figure 3suggested that between 1300 and 1600 city growth was concentrated in northwesternEurope, although several cities in Flanders declined. Decline was concentrated insouthern European cities. Especially many western Mediterranean cities declined,although most southern Italian cities grew. Figure 5 gives the impression that thegeneral shift from south to northwest continued throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth,and nineteenth century. The rest of this article examines this development in moredetail. This section calculates the changing urban centre of gravity. The next sectionportrays the regional differentiation within this general process.

The maps presented in the previous section suggested that the European centre ofgravity shifted from the south towards the northwest. Many historical studies use theshifting European centre of gravity as a metaphor, but one can also measure it. Wecalculated the centre of gravity of the European urban population using the dataprovided by Bairoch.[8] By multiplying the population figure of each city with both(decimal) map coordinates, summing these, and subsequently dividing them with thesum of the population of all the cities in Europe, we obtain the map coordinates ofthe point in which Europe’s urban population was theoretically concentrated. Figure6 depicts for the period 1300–1850 the shifting urban centre of gravity thus calculatedfor Europe as a whole. This pattern is quite erratic. The long-term trend is towardsthe north, but there is also an oscillation between east and west. Between 1300 and1700 the trend was towards the west, which was more than reversed in the next century.In the beginning of the nineteenth century the trend was again favouring the west.However, the data on the Russian Empire are not so reliable.[9] Figure 7 thereforedisplays the urban centre of gravity for Europe without the territory of the formerSoviet Union. These results are consistent with the previously discussed shift from thesouth to the northwest. The demise of the Mediterranean world and the rise ofnorthwestern Europe is clearly visible, especially in the seventeenth century. This shiftnorthwards accelerated again in the first half of the nineteenth century when Britainrose to world dominance.

This general pattern in the shift in Europe’s urban centre of gravity fits very wellwith Braudel’s perspective of the world.[10] He sketches the European economy in thelate Middle Ages as centred on two poles, one in northern Italy, and one in the LowCountries. About 1600 the balance between these poles started to shift northwards.

135EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

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10

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Data Bank and Short Summary of Results (Geneve 1988)].

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Cities: Data Bank and Short Summary of Results (Geneve 1988)].

Braudel regards this shift as the result of a sequence of world-systems, each with adifferent location of the core. Following a period of growth and success, each Europeanworld-system declined and fell into a crisis. After this period of stagnation a new world-system arose out of the remnants of the old one. Each of these successive world-systemshad according to Braudel a distinct spatial structure, with a different world city at its

137EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

T 1Location of the core in Braudel’s world-systems

City Region Period

Venice — 1378–1498Antwerp — 1500–1569Genoa — 1557–1627Amsterdam — 1585–1773London England 1773–1929New York United States 1929–present

Source: F. Braudel, The Perspective of the World: Civilizationand Capitalism 15th–18th Century (New York 1986).

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Figure 8. Shift in the urban centre of gravity 1300–1850: the European part of the world-system.[Source: own computations. Data from: P. Bairoch, J. Batou and P. Chevre, The Population of

European Cities: Data Bank and Short Summary of Results (Geneve 1988)].

centre.[11] Table 1 gives Braudel’s location of the core for each consecutive world-system.These shifts in the European core recorded in Table 1 coincide largely with the shift

in the urban centre of gravity depicted in Figure 7. But the European world-systemdid not then include the whole of Europe. Braudel, like Wallerstein, regards the Russianand Turkish empires as separate world-systems.[12] We therefore also calculated theurban centre of gravity for the European part of the world-system. This includes forthis period the British Isles, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, theBaltic countries, the Austrian Empire, France, and the Iberian and Italian peninsulas.Figure 8 presents these results combined with the cities where Braudel locates the coreof the world-system.

Figure 8 shows that after some erratic moves the urban centre of gravity after 1600shifted clearly and almost linearly towards the northwest. This more systematic changeafter 1600 is perhaps an indication that only then did a truly systematic world-systemcome into existence. This supports Wallerstein’s notion that the world-system cameinto existence in the long sixteenth century, rather than Braudel’s insistence on its much

138 KEES TERLOUW

T 2War intensity and shift in the urban centre of gravity

Period War intensity (yearly Shift in urban centre of gravityaverage of fatalities of (distance in decimal grades)great power wars permillion inhabitants of

Europe)Europe Europe minus European

as a Russian part of thewhole Empire world-system

1300–1400 — 0.72 0.80 1.521400–1500 — 0.86 0.31 0.511500–1600 109 0.62 0.85 0.931600–1700 424 1.42 1.63 1.551700–1750 355 0.99 0.06 0.011750–1800 276 0.72 0.13 0.141800–1850 344 1.46 2.03 1.75

1.00 0.81 0.29 0.22Pearson correlationcoefficient with warintensity

Source: own computations. Data on war intensity: J. S. Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in theModern Age (New Haven 1988) 397–8. Data on urban populations: P. Bairoch, J. Batou and P. Chevre, ThePopulation of European Cities: Data Bank and Short Summary of Results (Geneve 1988).

earlier roots. On the other hand, these facts also fit with Braudel’s notion of sequentialworld-systems, each with a different spatial structure. According to Braudel, thefourteenth-century European economy was centred on Venice. There the circuits of theeastern Mediterranean long-distance trade touched the European dorsal.[13] Venice’sposition waned in the sixteenth century. Braudel regards Antwerp as the new centralcity of the world-system. However, Figure 8 shows that the centre of urban gravityshifted towards the southwest, rather than to the northwest. This suggests that Portugal’srole was more important than Braudel supposes.[14] Around 1600, the centre of gravityof the world-system in Europe briefly returned to the south, when Genoa held a centralposition in the European financial system. This rule “was so discreet and sophisticatedthat historians for a long time failed to notice it”,[15] but is clearly visible in Figure 8.Genoa’s subsequent decline further undermined the Mediterranean trade circuits.Northwestern Europe was the new centre of the maturing and expanding modernworld-system. Trade was intensified and the Americas were colonized. Figure 8 clearlyshows that this shift had two stages. After the first northwestwards shift between 1600and 1700, which roughly coincided with the rise to dominance of Amsterdam, therewas a period of relative stability (1700–1800). Then there was another strong north-westwards shift after 1800. This coincided with England’s rise to the hegemony in theworld-system.[16]

These shifts in urban centre of gravity support both Braudel’s and Wallerstein’s ideas.Both the direction and the magnitude of these shifts largely coincide with Braudel’sand Wallerstein’s ideas about the regional development in the European part of theworld-system. This supports their ideas about the world-system; both in its geographicaldelimitation and in their interpretation of the changing spatial organization. But thesechanges in the urban centre of gravity not only coincide with the changing hegemonyin the world-system. The periods of rapid change in the urban centre of gravity roughlycoincide with periods of intense political strife, respectively the “Age of ReligiousDiscord” and the Napoleonic Wars. Table 2 shows this relation using the number of

139EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

battle fatalities in great power wars per million inhabitants of Europe as an indicatorof the intensity of warfare in Europe.[17] There is a clear relation between the intensityof war and the reorganization of Europe’s regional structure. The periods with thelargest shifts in urban centre of gravity coincide with the periods with the most intensewarfare. The Pearson correlation coefficients show that the linear relation with warintensity and shift in urban centre of gravity is by far stronger for Europe as a whole,than the European part of the world-system. This suggests that for political processesWallerstein’s delimitation of the world-system based on economic criteria is incorrect.It supports those critics of him who say that the political processes extended beyondthe boundaries of Wallerstein’s economic world-system.[18]

The regional differentiation within Europe

This analysis of the shift in Europe’s urban centre of gravity gives us a good overviewof the general regional development in Europe. It sketches a clear general development,which can be satisfactorily explained by Braudel’s global historical perspective. However,the averaging process that underlies this analysis not only reveals the general trend,but also conceals the very diverse pattern of regional development. Figure 5 indicatedthe local differentiation within the general shift from the south towards the northwest.It showed that not all south European towns declined and not all northwest Europeantowns matured. However, this pattern based on thousands of towns is far too complexto interpret at the European level. An aggregation of the data is therefore necessary.

This can and has been done in several different ways, none of them without seriousflaws. One can try “sidestepping the knotty problems of regionalization”[19] and use atechnical solution like urban attraction,[20] or divide Europe into a checkerboard.[21]

Although these are legitimate procedures and do produce interesting results, thesesolutions are too arbitrary. Areas delimited by isolines or grids are not tangiblephenomena in Europe. These areas have no social significance; they are politically inert.

The nation state is a better choice, but conceals too much valuable information. Wehave detailed enough data for a more differentiated examination. But how does onedelimit subnational regions? The delimitation of nation states is already very difficultbecause of boundary changes over the centuries. These thwart any undisputed de-limitation of European regions at the subnational level. Our solution to this Gordianknot is to start with the present regional division of the European Union. We use theNomenclature of Units of Territory for Statistics at the second level. This is the favouriteof the Commission of the European Communities.[22] To make these regions morecomparable in size and population, the Dutch Planning Agency adapted this NUTS IIclassification by using for the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Belgium thecoarser NUTS I level.[23] This still includes some very small city regions. For thispaper we adapted this classification further by merging these city regions with theirneighbours.[24] The resulting regionalization of the European Union is detailed enoughto reveal subnational patterns, but generalized enough to minimize the problem ofregions with too few cities. It also simplifies the comparison with information on thepresent regional differentiation in the European Union.

For the rest of Europe there is no generally accepted classification to build on. Thisis not too problematic, because there were only a few cities in those areas. They weretoo scattered in the period 1300–1850 for a meaningful differentiation at the subnationallevel. Especially after the recent shattering of the Soviet block, these states are smallenough to depict the regional differentiation within Europe.

140 KEES TERLOUW

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141EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

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Based on this hybrid regionalization of Europe we summed the urban population ofall the towns in each region. By dividing this with the area of the region we calculatedthe density of the urban population. Figures 9 to 12 depict the urban densities inEurope in 1300, 1500, 1700 and 1850, and the changes with the previous year studied.

The generally increasing urban density is clearly visible in Figures 9 to 12. This takesplace within a relatively stable regional structure. The correlation between the densitiesof urban population in different years is high, although it decreases as the periodbetween the years increases. A factor analysis revealed a strong underlying principalcomponent, which explains 83·2 per cent of the total variance. A first glance at thesefigures show that northern Italy and the Low Countries had comparatively very highlevels of density of urban population at least until 1500. The previously discussed shifttowards northwestern Europe is also clearly visible: first promoting the Netherlands,later benefitting England.

When we look more closely, we see in Figure 9 clearly the two poles around whichaccording to Braudel[25] the European economy functioned. The Low Countries andnorthern Italy are the most urbanized regions in 1300. Along the Mediterranean shoresis a secondary concentration of development. Figure 10 shows that these regionsstagnated and declined in the period 1300–1500. In this period the more inland regionson the Iberic peninsula and Portugal prospered. Later (1500–1700) this trend wasreversed for most of them. Only the capital regions of Madrid and Lisbon continuedto grow strongly. But more important were the developments in northwestern Europe.Of the developed regions the western part of the present Netherlands had the highestgrowth rates between 1300 and 1500. The growth rates in neighbouring Belgium weremodest. Much more dramatic is the stagnation and decline in northern Italy; the otherold pole of development. The decline in the southeastern part of Europe, where theByzantine empire was crushed, is also clearly visible in Figure 10.

The changes between 1500 and 1700 are to a large extent a continuation of thechanges between 1300 and 1500, although the differences are less articulated. Hollandstill grows, but less strongly, and the decline of the north Italian regions is also lesspronounced. The strong regional development in Great Britain is a new phenomenon,which is even more clearly visible in the period 1700–1850 when it attained the hegemonyin the world-system. Scotland is a clear exception. Figure 12 shows the developingindustrial regions in the Midlands, the Ruhr, Wallonia, Lorraine, Catalonia, andnorthern Spain. However, not only industrial regions urbanize. The growth in southernItaly compared to the relative stagnation in northern Italy that was already visible inFigure 11 became even more apparent between 1700 and 1850. In the Netherlands thestagnation of the west contrasted with a revival in the east. This was the opposite ofthe development between 1300 and 1500 when the ascent of the Netherlands coincidedwith a decline of its eastern provinces. So within the general rise and decline of theNetherlands, there were significant differences between its western and eastern regions.

Conclusion

This paper has indicated the persistence of Europe’s regional urban structure, wherethe dominant position of the Mediterranean regions slowly declined in favour of thenorthwestern part of Europe. It also described the specific regional pattern of this long-term change, showing how some regions deviated from the general trend.

The tenacity of the European dorsal running from northern Italy northwestwardsacross Europe is obvious. The pattern of the changes in the focus of development is

145EUROPE FROM 1300 TO 1850

more volatile. For the period 1300–1850 for Europe as a whole, the pattern was quiteerratic. The long-term trend was towards the north, but there was also an oscillationbetween east and west. A much clearer pattern emerged when one considered only theEuropean part of the world-system. The steadily northwestwards shift of the focus ofdevelopment after 1600 was then clearly visible. The two accelerations in this processcoincided with respectively the Dutch and English hegemony. This supports the world-system theory. Nevertheless, the political processes probably covered a larger area thanthe economy of the world-system.

The regional pattern was much more diverse. The material presented in this paperprovides illustrations of the regional differentiations within the general trend. Thisunique material helps us improve our understanding of the long-term evolution ofEurope’s regional structure. This material not only reveals the general European-widetrends, but also shows the regional differentiation and the deviations from this trend.

Department of Human GeographyPO Box 801153508 TC UtrechtThe Netherlands

Notes[1] P. Nijkamp, Towards a network of regions: the United states of Europe European Planning

Studies 1 (1993) 149–68. I. Masser, O. Sviden and M. Wegener, The Geography of Europe’sFutures (London 1992). Commission of the European Communities, Europe 2000: Outlookfor the Development of the Community’s Territory (Brussels 1991). M. Sinz, EuropaischeIntegration und Raumentwicklung in Deutschland Geographische Rundschau 44 (1992)686–90

[2] R. Brunet, Les Villes ‘Europeennes’ (Paris 1989)[3] Brunet, ibid., 78–9[4] Stoob is right to stress that the function of a city varies considerably between periods and

location. H. Stoob (Ed.), Die Stadt: Gestalt und Wandel bis zum industriellen Zeitalter (Koln1985) 125–260. But however dissimilar the autonomy or structure of cities are, their sizeindicates the economic development of the surrounding region as indicated by J. Gottmann,De la methode d’analyse en geographie humaine Annales de Geographie 56 (1947) 1–12; J.Gottmann, A Geography of Europe (New York 1951); G. A. Hoekveld and G. Hoekveld-Meijer, The regional development of France: an application of a regional geographicmethodology, in C. P. Terlouw (Ed.), Methodological Exercises in Regional Geography:France as an Example (Utrecht 1994) 23–62, and P. Hall and D. Hay, Growth Centres in theEuropean Urban System (London 1980) 11

[5] P. Bairoch, J. Batou and P. Chevre, The Population of European Cities: Data Bank and ShortSummary of Results (Geneve 1988)

[6] On the one hand, it is more comprehensive than the one collected by de Vries, who excludeseastern European cities and covers the period 1500–1800 for 379 cities. J. de Vries, EuropeanUrbanization 1500–1800 (London 1984). On the other hand, it covers a larger area than thedetailed historical studies into the development of cities who cover only a part of Europe.Stoob, ibid., for instance describes the process of city formation for selected cities in centralEurope from the Middle Ages till the industrial era. His description of the general patternof city development is based on the year a city was founded and is limited to central Europe.However interesting Stoob’s study is, the data collected by Bairoch are much more usefulfor gaining insight in the European pattern of regional development. The database usedhere has quite reliable data for the whole of Europe between 1300 and 1850. Although thereliability of the data differs between time and place. Modern data are the most accurate,and the reliability of the data differs also between different groups of countries. Rankedfrom most to least reliable: Belgium, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland; France,Hungary, the Netherlands, the British Isles; Germany, Austria, Portugal, Czechoslovakia;

146 KEES TERLOUW

Spain, Italy; the rest of the Balkans; Russia. The margin of error in 1800 is 5–7 per cent forEurope as a whole and about 15 per cent for eastern Europe. In 1300 the margin of erroris 9–13 per cent for Europe as a whole and 18–20 per cent for eastern Europe. Bairoch,Batou and Chevre, ibid., 253, 298–9

[7] Brunet, ibid., 79. The area Brunet studies differs from the territory of the EU in 1993. Brunetexcludes the former GDR and includes Switzerland and Austria

[8] Bairoch, Batou and Chevre, ibid.[9] Bairoch, Batou and Chevre, ibid., 298–9

[10] F. Braudel, The Perspective of the World: Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century(New York 1986)

[11] Braudel, ibid., 34–5, 153, 157, 210, 272, 295[12] Braudel, ibid. I. Wallerstein, The Modern World-system: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins

of the European World-economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York 1974). I. Wallerstein,The Modern World-system II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-economy 1600–1750 (New York 1980). I. Wallerstein, The Modern World-system III: TheSecond Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-economy, 1730–1840s 1600–1750(New York 1989)

[13] Braudel, ibid., 124[14] Braudel, ibid., 132–53[15] Braudel, ibid., 157[16] Braudel, ibid., 89–276. I. Wallerstein, The Modern World-system III[17] The intensity of war is the yearly average of battle fatalities of great power wars per million

inhabitants of Europe. J. S. Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System 1495–1975(Lexington 1983) 87. J. S. Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age(New Haven 1988) 397–8

[18] G. Modelski, The long cycle of global politics and the nation-state Comparative Studies inSociety and History 20 (1978) 214–35. A. R. Zolberg, Origins of the modern world system:a missing link World Politics 33 (1981) 253–81

[19] de Vries, ibid., 155[20] de Vries, ibid.[21] Brunet, ibid.[22] Commission of the European Communities, ibid.[23] Rijksplanologische Dienst, Perspectieven in Europa: een Verkenning van Opties voor een

Europees Ruimtelijk beleid voor Noordwest-Europa (Den Haag 1991)[24] The German city regions were merged with the regions with which they have the largest

common border. Bremen with Niedersachsen, Hamburg with Schleswig-Holstein, and Berlinwith Brandenburg. Brussels was merged with the province of Brabant

[25] Braudel, ibid.