Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 July 17

= July 17 =

Why are many major cities
Why are many of the major cities in Europe such as Rome,London, and Paris located inland instead of right at the mouths of their respective rivers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle dan is home (talk • contribs) 23:48, 17 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Actually London is at the mouth of the Thames. It was a major port of the British empire, as "the Docklands" in East London testify. Also it has a strong tide up to the Parliament. Any further East, and you cannot easily bridge the Thames, which makes it difficult to benefit from both banks.
 * For the others: not sure, maybe arable land matters more for city growth than immediate access to the City?
 * Cannot easily bridge at the Parliament? The Hudson River at Manhattan's CBD is almost a mile wide. 5 tunnels cross that, some over a century old. New York City has tens of 100-200 foot clearance bridge or tunnel crossings over c. 1/2 mile. The Hampton Roads area has four water crossings >c. 5 miles. It has had a bridge-tunnel c. 20 miles long since 1964 and is a much smaller metropolitan area than London. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Land was much more fragmented into smaller countries in most stretches of history and thus many countries only had a limited choice what to make their center. How each of them developed was much more dependent on political and diplomatic skill of their rulers and traders, and also luck ofcourse, then dependent on natural resources and alike local advantages. Local advantages and resources can vanish or become meaningless over time. Like a castle on a strategical position was a saveguard for local power until the canons where invented. What seemed a perfect choice 500 years ago may look like an odd one today. --Kharon (talk) 03:08, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Don't confuse "cannot easily bridge" today for "could not easily bridge over 2000 years ago when the city was founded". New York City has many short crossings to the mainland, or indirectly through Staten Island, and the longer ones in midtown and downtown were mostly built in the 19th and 20th centuries. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, Someguy1221. And I was unclear, Sagittarian Milky Way I meant "further East" of the Docklands, not at the parliament. Obviously you can easily bridge in the city centre, there were many bridges very early, including London Bridge probably around 50 AD. --Lgriot (talk) 15:40, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "At this location, the Tiber forms a Z-shaped curve that contains an island where the river can be forded. Because of the river and the ford, Rome was at a crossroads of traffic following the river valley and of traders traveling north and south on the west side of the peninsula." In other words, considerations for city locations 2-3000 years ago were a bit different than considerations 2-300 years ago. --Golbez (talk) 03:40, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

, I'll take your "1964" and raise it. There's evidence of a bridge in London that's 3,500 years old and the point about going further east is well-made. Also bear in mind that London wasn't unambiguously the capital of any sort of 'country' at all until as recently (we're talking about the UK's history here) as the second century CE, and that after the Romans departed, it wasn't unambiguously the capital of a 'country'-type entity again until pretty much yesterday, say the late 10th century. That's only about a thousand years ago, but bridge-building was still fairly tricky then. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Other 'capitals' you might like to look at in Blighty are Colchester (Romans) and Winchester (Anglo-Saxons, although the role of Winchester is disputed). As well as a host of capitals of small, fragmented early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms before bretwaldas became properly national kings. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:35, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The city of Perth, Western Australia, is some miles upstream from its port of Fremantle.  The reason for this is explained in the lead paragraph of Colonial Town Plans of Perth. 2A00:23C0:7F02:C01:9DCF:5631:446B:F686 (talk) 11:09, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * That arrangement is fairly common, consider Ostia, Bremerhaven, etc.-- Jayron 32 14:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm confused as to why the OP would believe that large European cities would be located at the mouths of rivers? Worldwide, cities are rarely located at the mouths of major rivers (rarely being not a synonym for never, mind) and instead have always been located at places where the economics favors population density; i.e. at a nexus of trade, i.e. at a place that has a good natural harbor or at a crossroads or at a place where land and water transport have convenient interchanges (fords or portages etc.)  Rivers are important as access to fresh water, but the mouth of major rivers is often not particularly good (the water is often brackish, the land marshy, there aren't often good harbors, etc.) Major European cities were located where major cities always are: transportation hubs.  London has a good natural harbor (the Thames Estuary and the London Docklands) and was located where that estuary also had good land transport crossings (read Londinium, which notes in the first sentence why London is where London is).  Paris is not a major port, but read the first sentence at Paris.  The Île de la Cité is a location that at once provides easy defensibility AND an obvious transport nexus.  History_of_Rome contains a similar story, and branching out to other major European population centers, Moscow, Istanbul, Berlin, Madrid, Kiev, etc. etc. are all located where river crossings (bridges, fords, etc.) or major natural harbors provide logical transport hubs, i.e. the place where lots of goods are going to all have to pass through from multiple locations.  Looking beyond Europe, list of largest cities shows that where a city DOES exist at a river mouth (more often than not it ISN'T) it is because that river affords a harbor or otherwise is a good location as a transport hub (i.e. London, or Shanghai, whose location on Suzhou Creek mirrors London's location on the Thames).  Karachi, the 4th largest city in the world, is noted as a "transport hub", and there's no river there, but there is a really good natural harbor.  The story is the same everywhere: if a city exists, it exists because it is a natural location for commerce, which means a major crossroads, harbor, or ford/bridge site. -- Jayron 32 12:00, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * There could also have been military reasons. For example, if you were expecting an attack to come from the sea, say from Vikings, then you would want your city inland, so they would need to march inland to attack, giving you time to prepare your defenses (close and bar the city gates, place archers on all the walls, etc.). StuRat (talk) 12:11, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * You really needed a river though, since until the railways, transport in bulk overland was far more expensive and slow than by ship or barge. Alansplodge (talk) 13:02, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Or harbor; there are several major cities without a navigable river. Istanbul, Karachi and Lagos are three of the ten largest cities in the world, and while they do not have easily navigable rivers, they are all located on major harbors that allow them to act as hubs of trade.  -- Jayron 32 19:56, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, they definitely need some water supply, and a river could also be used for transportation, but if they are some distance up the river, rather than right at the mouth, that would prevent sneak attacks from the sea. Large ocean-going vessels may not be able to go up the river, and smaller vessels would have to fight the current, and perhaps archers on the shores, making it difficult to attack before defenses could be readied.   (Sneak attacks from land may still be possible, but they would also be possible at the mouth of the river.)   StuRat (talk) 15:17, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * As an aside, I had mentioned, off-hand above, that major cities are located at transportation hubs, and in listing those I'd mentioned a portage as one of those. Since my prior examples had listed both harbors and river crossings, but not portages, I thought I would give at least two example of an important city so located São Paulo, which is located at the portage across the Serra do Mar between the Tietê River and the Atlantic Ocean.  Chicago also, as prior to the building of canals, is where it is because it was the best portage site between the Great Lakes (Chicago River) and the Mississippi River (specifically the Des Plaines River).  -- Jayron 32 20:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Related to that, consider a few other US river cities: Louisville sits at the only waterfall site on the Ohio River, and many cities lie on the Atlantic Seaboard fall line. Also, more generally, consider that a city on the ocean is completely vulnerable to sea storms and to relatively unpredictable seaside erosion, and while both can be factors for river cities near the coast, neither one is as big of a deal in such a case.  For example, Venice, Louisiana was almost completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, while upstream in New Orleans, neighborhoods sitting above the river (thus much less vulnerable to levee failures) didn't suffer comparable damage.  Nyttend (talk) 23:41, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Similarly Niagara Falls, New York, and the nearby Buffalo, New York are near the falls there, which is a definite portage site. On the Canadian side, we also have Niagara Falls, Ontario.  Initially this location was of military importance, as if you could deny the enemy the ability to portage there, that would prevent access to 4 of the 5 Great Lakes.  Later, the falls became an important tourist attraction and power source.  StuRat (talk) 23:58, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * By the way, my comment about seaside erosion — see our article about Dunwich, once the capital of an English petty kingdom and a major seaport, but inhabited by eighty-four people in the 2001 census. It lies atop a bluff on the North Sea coast of East Anglia, and its prosperity was ruined by a series of heavy storms that caused much of the town to collapse into the sea.  Nyttend (talk) 04:23, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, placement right on the ocean, or a large sea or lake, can both be a long-term problem due to coastal erosion, and a short term problem due to storms. New Orleans found this out when Hurricane Katrina hit.  Some of the lessons learned there, that coastal areas must be kept undeveloped to absorb storm surge, and houses in flood zones should be rebuilt further inland, have the effect of moving NO further upstream.  So, this process of adapting building location based on weather and erosion remains ongoing, even today.  A new element is global climate change, which may make it necessary to move many coastal communities inland, as sea levels rise. StuRat (talk) 14:41, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * City placement is studied a part of Economic geography. In addition to the points above, a major consideration was how far upstream a seagoing merchant ship could easily get. It is much more economical to take your ship inland than it is to transship the goods into barges or wagons. -Arch dude (talk) 03:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * While I have no sources for either view I wouldn't think that the position of the city would have added much to the defences from the water. Any city that is able to handle trading ships is also going to be accessible to attacking ships. The Vikings managed it. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 07:09, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It won't prevent an attack, but it will give the defenders time to prepare, which can be critical. StuRat (talk) 14:39, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * This is paraphrasing the historian Jürgen Osterhammel in his book "The Transformation of the World." He notes that before the 19th century, most of the largest cities were inland (e.g. Beijing, Baghdad, Cairo, Madrid, Moscow, and the ones mentioned in the OP). North America is an exception in this regard. Like others here, he suggests that other factors are important in the growth of a metropolis: trade, providing services, cultural or political importance, etc. Herbivore (talk) 17:39, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that; of the 20 largest North American mainland cities, only New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego are strictly coastal; of those only San Diego has it's urban core directly "on the beach" as it were; Manhattan is within a well protected harbor, and the urban core of LA is some miles from the sea, similar to "inland" European cities like Rome. One might also count Chicago in that list, if one considers Lake Michigan coastal.  But other than that, most of that list is at least a few miles inland.  -- Jayron 32 19:51, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * But the problem with that analysis is that it's based on municipal borders, while metro areas are more relevant. For example, Indianapolis (#15 largest) is 30% more populous than Boston (#22 largest), but that's because it's annexed much of what was previously unincorporated suburbs, an approach not possible in Massachusetts, and Columbus, Ohio (#14 largest) likewise is larger than Boston because it's annexed significant portions of its metropolitan area.  Greater Boston is the tenth largest metropolitan area in the country, and its metropolitan area is a good deal more populous than the Indianapolis and Columbus metropolitan areas put together.  Take away Columbus and Indianapolis, and in place of two cities that are entirely continental, you get one that's directly on the ocean and one on a river big enough for a big naval base.  Nyttend (talk) 23:39, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Lots of inland cities have major ports or naval yards, such as Richmond, VA, Philadelphia, PA, or Houston. It doesn't make them coastal.  A river is still not an ocean. -- Jayron 32 12:04, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, Boston also annexed many of its suburbs. Roxbury, Brighton, Charlestown, and Dorchester were all once independent municipalities.  "Boston proper" is restricted to the Shawmut peninsula and the Back Bay.  But even if we change to metro areas, that's now bumped us to 4 out 20 instead of 3.  It hardly changes the math that much.  -- Jayron 32 12:07, 20 July 2017 (UTC)