r/geography • u/dziki_z_lasu • 11d ago
Does this line have a name? Why is there such a difference in the density of towns and cities? Question
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u/Mammoth_Violinist744 7d ago
Cuz the giant earth dinosaur w the huge sack is trying to eat it, look at the big picture
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u/KetoWaSonoMonChau 8d ago
- So, does it have a name? 2. Why does it (sort of) track the Pale of Settlement?
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u/BeepityBoppityLettuc 8d ago
I love how you can still see the pre-1939 wester Polish borders on this map!
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u/dziki_z_lasu 8d ago
Not exactly, because of Lower Silesia. It is rather a stripe of heavily forested stripe of terrible for agriculture very sandy soil, also terrain is full of lakes, swamps and steep, crazy fast eroding if trees are cut hills (young post glacial terrain). You can see that also on satellite images.
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u/Powerful_Spend_1612 8d ago
I’m ashamed to say I only know the location of one country on this map and it’s Italy.
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u/triple7freak1 9d ago
Hier geht es um Ortschaften mit +1000 Einwohnern nicht um die Bevölkerungsdichte…wir haben überall in Deutschland kleinere Ortschaften verteilt auf dem Land deswegen sieht es so voll aus auf dem Bild. Tokyo, wo 38 Millionen Menschen leben ist nur 1 roter Punkt und die kleine Ortschaft in DE von nebenan aber halt auch.
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u/CrewCamel 9d ago
The “line” matches the eastern borders of Romania and Poland.
The map is misleading if you think it represents population density overall. It represents each countries interpretation of the size and population of their municipalities which is why you can see country borders in the map.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 9d ago
It doesn't match the Polish border at all. Whole regions of Warmia-Masuria and Podlasia are beyond it. If it was only about the size of a place then add 6000 villages with 1000+ population only in Poland which is almost 7 times more dots, but a town is a different place than a village. This map shows a distribution of towns and cities but it has some correlation with population density, so you need enough people to keep a town. Continuously red regions in south correspond to population density of 200-300 people per km2, in central Poland this value drops to about 150 on average. Lithuania's Population density is 43, Russia is 8,5 with sparsely distributed more dense regions like 67 in neighbouring Kaliningrad exclave, which is exactly like in Masuria and I don't see bigger differences.
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u/CrewCamel 9d ago edited 9d ago
I can definitely see Poland’s present day border in the map.
I can actually even see their pre-ww2 border. Pomerania and Warmia have fewer dots (like you mentioned) making the polish corridor visible.
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u/Legitimate-Pay2237 9d ago
Not exactly there but the Ural Mountains are near. Perhaps they started to populate at the foot of it
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u/Enganox8 9d ago
I feel like you could see similar lines in the USA. People don't really like living far away from water, so they're all up in the mountains and coastlines. Also cold climes are unpopular, naturally.
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u/Teddybear-kac 9d ago
We can still see the pre WW1 Romania borders, that’s pretty cool
Also nobody lives in Slovakia
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u/Altruistic_Knee8651 9d ago
Shit map, Portugal and Spain have a similar area in size to Turkey (about 15% lower) whilst having 75% of Turkeys population. Spain and Portugal look way more dense on the map but the numbers would disagree.
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u/agile-is-what 9d ago
I doubt the data here, there is no way there is such radical change of density between Ukraine vs Poland or Romania vs Ukraine. This measurement - number of towns with a population over 1000 people doesn't seem to correlate always with actual population density.
I suspect it has to do with how towns are defined, Ukraine has villages with over 12k population.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 9d ago edited 9d ago
Then to those something like 900 cities and towns in Poland add 5000-6000 villages over 1000 inhabitants - yes 40% of Poles live in rural areas, however especially in southern Poland with a population density of 200-300 people per sq. km you would call it simply agglomerations. The biggest Silesian - Kraków* with 6 milion people agglomeration has dimensions about 200x80 km however the biggest city has barely 1 milion inhabitants - Kraków and the next one - Katowice has 250k. How not accustomed to such an urbanisation planning are Ukrainians, proof refugees strongly opposing to live for example in a small Silesian town... with a tram connecting it with five exactly same looking towns and cities, just after it's visible only by an informative road sign borders.
*Yes, those are definitely Kraków and Silesian separate by a vast (1km at best) open space agglomerations and Upper Silesia and Zagłębie are separated by uncrossable (unless you take a speed and jump) Brynica river ;)
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u/Impossible-War7959 9d ago
You can still see pre ww2 german prussia
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u/dziki_z_lasu 9d ago
In Poland it is rather Mazuria and inland Pomerania full of numerous, quite big lakes, swamps, big forests and steep hills, however flat agricultural lands near Konigsberg (now called differently by Russians after the Stalinist criminal Kalinin) are suspiciously empty. It looks like they didn't populate a lot of settlements there sticking only to bigger towns.
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u/tizzleduzzle 9d ago
Does anyone have an Australian version of this map? Would be interesting to see.
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u/P5B-DE 9d ago
If Moscow were divided into towns of 10000 people. Russia would have 1300 more dots on the map
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u/dziki_z_lasu 9d ago
No, this will just fill the white space within Moscow's agglomeration with one dot in the middle - Moscow. One pixel is something like 8x8 km on the map and they are clearly overlapping in many places.
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u/P5B-DE 9d ago
These dots from the divided Moscow do not have to be all in the same place and region
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u/dziki_z_lasu 9d ago
But the point of this map is to show the difference in distribution of towns and cities not to emphasise the greatness of big cities. We all know that Moscow, Istanbul, Kair or Paris are huge, but this map shows what you can expect between bigger cities, vast empty spaces or a town after town every 10 km or even 3 km in the case of Germany, Netherlands, southern Poland or England. This map corresponds to detailed population density maps like this one.
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u/Jade_Scimitar 9d ago
Denmark, Sweden, Balkans, Iberia, turkey, and the rest of the British isles really surprised me here.
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u/FormCheck655321 9d ago
The line is called “warning to conquerors, beyond here your army will freeze and starve to death”.
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u/Ordinary_Block9270 9d ago
In the 1990‘s polish border police would answer, that this line is the end of civilisation.
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u/tnh88 9d ago
It's very simple:
- you can't build houses on water. This forces people inwards on land as population increases
- People don't want to move to a different country, especially eastern Europe.
- Eastern Europe is massive. No inward pressure.
If you look at the west part of Ukraine-ish for example, the high density is Moldova, across from Ukraine.
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u/letthetreeburn 10d ago
The temperature line. Past there winters are harsh and the growing season is much shorter. Life is harder, so less people live there.
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u/apple-masher 10d ago
That is the approximate border of the former soviet union. I'm not sure whether that is the cause of the low population density, but I wouldn't be surprised.
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u/jerfair337 10d ago
Water. People build villages near water for access to food and trade. Those villages become towns. Towns become cities
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u/_SpaceGator 10d ago
That was the border between NATO and the Warsaw Pact at one point.
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u/mainwasser 10d ago
No, Warsaw itself is literally west of it
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u/_SpaceGator 10d ago
Oh, so this isn't literally the border, but it's pretty close? Thought so thanks.
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u/Osniffable 10d ago
Its called the "Dziki Line." Named after the discoverer.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago
"Wilding from a forest line" may be considered a bit too offensive. However it will fit the Lithuanian policeman, who stopped me refusing to communicate in any other language then Lithuanian and after a couple minutes suddenly started to speak perfect Polish, with only a slight accent (routine soberity control) - a wild experience ;)
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u/ReputantisHebetem 10d ago
If I had to give a quick answer, it would be because of the differences in development, history, environment and reputation of the areas.
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u/jadnich 10d ago
It’s actually a pretty interesting geo-political line. The Carpathian Mountains are there. It creates a relatively narrow gap between Europe and Asia that has a military impact.
This is one of the reasons for the Russia/Ukraine conflict. From a Russian perspective, if Ukraine is under their control, they have a natural border protecting themselves from NATO. If Ukraine is aligned with the EU, then Europe has a giant border with Russia from which they can launch attacks.
Please note, I am not commenting on the validity of this argument. For the purposes of this comment, I am trying to provide a neutral response. This is exclusively about the border, its geo-political impact, and how it might relate to the OP here. If something I said runs counter to your perspective on the current war, please forgive me.
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u/TioFilero 10d ago
that line is about where the soviet union started, more or less. So, the difference is probably Stalinism.
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u/PLPolandPL15719 10d ago
What has happened to Slovakia? And the difference between Romania/Moldova?
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u/Blu3fin 10d ago
Isn’t this just the prewar Soviet border? The rest of the climate and agriculture reasons probably had something to do with why this is the border, but that is pretty damn close to the edge of the USSR.
https://cdn.britannica.com/77/4877-050-0B68BA46/Soviet-gains-1922.jpg
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u/Hagel-Kaiser 10d ago
Historically, its funny to see the borders of the old kingdom of Hungary, and the Wallachia-Moldavia combined Romania shape too.
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u/dontwinkatme 10d ago
The Iron Curtain
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u/H_Lunulata 10d ago
The iron curtain was way west of that line. That line roughly demarcates the start of the USSR, which, during WWII was largely destroyed.
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u/OnlyClippersFan 10d ago
There is absolutely no way Romania is that densely populated. It might be just based off the different criteria and definitions for what is a town or city. I can guarantee to you that my county on the map has like 20 points at least but truly there are about 4-5 towns/cities in it.
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u/wannabe2700 10d ago
The middle Europe has the best weather for humans and animals. Not too cold and not too hot.
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u/__Osiris__ 10d ago
Mongals killed everyone to the east. Then they hit the endless rivers and dense forest that is Germany. No Roman; nor Mondale could breach those depths.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago
Nah, just a khan died and they started to fight amongst each other. Then there were only small rides until Poland and Hungary built proper defences and tactics against them.
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u/Crio121 10d ago
Possibly, it is a border of Russia /USSR, which changes definitions of town/city.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago edited 10d ago
It is damn empty there. If a local fast bus in Southern Poland sped up only to coast to the next bus stop in the next town 3 km away*, then in Lithuania you can take a nap between such a bus stops. Local busses in Southern Poland stop almost as frequently as city buses if it is morning or afternoon, in Lithuania it would still be the same field if bus stops were as dense.
*There is even a joke that Autosan busses milage is in 2/3 made by coasting 😂
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u/Emperor_Mao 10d ago edited 10d ago
If you ignore scandinavia, it kind of matches the borders of the Russian Empire prior to Alexander the II.
https://timemaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/russia1837ad.jpg
I can't explain Norway and Sweden with this solution though. Except that maybe - orkneys and Iceland included, its really cold and historically big populations have never done well in those regions.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago
It is incredible how you can see the eastern border of Kongres Poland, which was formally independent territory (in reality under a "state of siege") and Russia didn't care about local laws, only if money from there checks. I read somewhere that this fragment with 1/16th of empires population, was responsible for it's 20% of GDP what is kinda crazy. It looks like the "organic work" - economic development and the"work from the foundations" - education, were not empty slogans of the Polish resistance, developed after failed romantic uprisings.
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u/Emperor_Mao 10d ago
Ah yes. I think it is understandable why the Polish werent happy haha. On paper they had plenty of political autonomy, but the Russian rulers generally disregarded it when it came to what the Russian lords wanted. Before Alex, Russia was incredibly backwards, like behind hundreds of years in terms of society and the whole economic structure. The reforms didn't bring it into the modern age, but did help alot. Congress Poland had much a similar system as Russia in some parts, still relyingheavily on serfdom. But a big difference was open trade policy by contemporary measures, English machinery and German specialist workers (and of course the Polish people themselves). Zinc also became a strong export to western Europe. Meanwhile most of Russia proper didn't embrace machinery and less protectionist trade until very very late into the 1800s. Kind of funny to think just how backwards the Russian Empire was, yet still remained a formiddible military force in Europe.
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u/BusyExtent2881 10d ago
Um are you baiting? That's called the iron curtain. It's the boarder of the former USSR
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u/doconnell63 10d ago
That is not the iron curtain. The ic went through Germany Poland Bulgaria etc were on the Eastern side
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u/irishman55 10d ago
Donald Trump saved millions of people’s lives from a hurricane. He really doesn’t get the credit he deserves.
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u/weezynow 10d ago
That's where the west becomes,.... "balkan". Past this line, femboys and american fast food will be much harder to find and gypsys are actually being gypsys.
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u/Loadingexperience 10d ago
The real reason is population density. Baltic states for example has 5 to 10 times lesser population density per sq. Km.
Weather has part of it but mostly it was wars, mass deportations and emigration sincw 90's that stopped these countries from increasing their population
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago
Looking at Poland, continuous red in the south corresponds to 200-300 people per sq. km, in fact much more so mountains and upland hills are there*, Central Poland is 120-150, north eastern part has about 60 and we consider Mazuria and Podlasia as places of primievial nature. Lithuania's number is 42...
*I love, how the Krakow-Czestochowa highland's limestone hills (known from ex. the Netflix Witcher series) are visible on this map.
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u/Low-Bookkeeper5434 10d ago
I'm surprised nobody here is remembering about the Mongols, they destroyed everything in their path to Europe, and altered so many ancient towns and cities wiping them off the face of the earth. The line follows loosely where they reached their apex, before splitting into the 4 separate mongol khans.
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u/lordtraveler 10d ago
I'm not sure of the validity of this map. Today, at around 90 million, Turkiye has more than the population of many small EU countries combined.
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago
15 million Istanbul and a 1000 inhabitants shit hole are both a one dot. It is crazy how countries with sparsely distributed towns are developing huge cities. However I understand that after talking with Ukrainians initially terrified of living in a small Polish town, not knowing that everything you need is within a 15 minute bus or train trip to neighbouring bigger towns and a bigger city is half an hour away.
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u/DanielDimov 10d ago
Probably the reason is the definition - what is a city/town and what is a village.
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u/themule71 10d ago
Well density of towns isn't exactly the same as density of people.
In Italy we have only two cities with more than 1000000 inhabitants, only 12 above 250.000. And 7900 different municipalities, 70% of them have less than 5000 inhabitants.
The dots in the graph are towns, not people.
BTW, it's cultural. A men from the south of Italy who moved to the north told me he was very surprised by how many small towns we had.
Also, even small towns are often divided into fractions, while under the same administration, people often say I'm from <name of the fraction> rather than <name of the town>. Towns were often created by aggregating several fractions, and people still use the old names.
I'm eyeballing it but there are probably 20000 of then (places with their own name that used to be villages/very small towns and people still identify as "where they are from").
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u/IndependentHold3098 10d ago
Ural mountains
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u/dziki_z_lasu 10d ago
Actually it fits almost perfectly with the other - western border of the ancient micro-continent Baltica. Eastern Carpathians together with uplands of Western Ukraine and small mountains of southern Poland also correspond to that boundary, however further north you notice it practically only by thermal water wells and mines, so ancient folds ease access to interesting minerals and there is still heat there.
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u/AlarmingDiscussion38 10d ago
Looks like the iron curtain, the west on the left and the soviets on the right.
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u/Bradystone 10d ago
Uhh looks like the old line of the iron curtain, the dense side is the non communist side who had a massive post war boom. The other is the communist side who had well corruption, food shortages, and total economic collapse. The curtain only fell in 1991 when the ussr collapsed. So they are just now trying to catch up to the other countries.
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u/L0gard 10d ago
It's the line where bloodlands begin, in last 300 years one of the most bloody battles and wars have been fought, populations culled over and over again. For example after Great Northen War, Estonia's population dropped to 100-150k. First world war cost Poland 5 million, After WWII Poland lost 11 million people - 1/4 of population. Belarus lost a third of population during Nazi occupation. Ukraine lost 7 million to Holodomor faminr, and 8 million during WWII, A Total of 15 mil in 15 years.
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u/Mangalorien 10d ago
Check out this video on average temperature per month:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC2-m13yQPE
During winter months you can almost see the line from OP's drawing. TLDR: once you go north-east of that line, it gets horribly cold during the winter.
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u/Playful-Ad4556 10d ago
Speaking about Spain. Spain is montanous and dry. Is not a nice farmable land like north europe. Life on the coast could be nice, but in the interior not so much.
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u/Fat_tata 10d ago
looks like the orthodox christians and islamic people tend to migrate to where the catholics take care of them.
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u/ionevenknobro_ 1d ago
It gets cold and more arable