Maps are useful, fascinating and sometimes almost almost An art form. However, they do not always allow us to understand real dimensions and distances well. Especially when we talk about broad territories. A map published in Urbanity.one (and shared by Madrid projects) With a peculiar approach: its author has taken some of the main cities of Central Europe, the metropolis of the one known as “Blue Banana”and has distributed them on a plane of the Iberian Peninsula respecting The real distances.
The result reminds us of two things. The first, the considerable size That has Spain. The second, how close the cities of Central Europe, a crucial factor to understand the history and economic development of the region.
As a picture is worth more than a thousand words, at the end of the 1980s the Geographer Roger Brunet decided to invent A visual metaphor to refer to the most populous and urbanized region in Europe. He called her The “Blue Banana”.
Maybe it sounds strange, but it makes enough sense when a map is taken. If the cities of the European industrial axis are connected, covering from England to the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and northern Italy, that is: the drawing of A huge banana Located more or less between Manchester, Munich, Zurich and Rome.
How big is that “Banana” imaginary? The first response to mind is obvious: very much, right? In Madrid it projects They have shared However, a map that helps to understand that this abstract axis is actually much smaller than what intuition suggests. At least if we compare it with Spain.
The reason is very simple. Its author has selected the metropolis that are distributed by that theoretical axis that structures Europe Central and has arranged them on a map of the Iberian Peninsula respecting the real distances between them.
The result It shows that Cambridge would be more or less where Vigo is, Rotterdam would stay up to Valladolid, Bremen in Pamplona, Stuttgart almost where Alicante is and Paris would more or less occupy the place of Badajoz. In the center of the Peninsula, in Madrid, it would be located (kilometer up, kilometer down) Düsseldorf and the Barcelona space would occupy by Linz, an Austrian city.
The cast may be striking, but it arrives with pulling Google Maps and its measurement tool for Check the distances. Between London and Paris there are about 340 km in a straight line, just under those that separate Madrid and Granada. If we pull a straight line from Rome to Munich would measure approximately 700 kilometers, a little less than Barcelona to Córdoba.
Comparisons are interesting for several reasons. The main one is that they remind us The great size of Spain. The Iberian Peninsula measures just over 583,000 km2 and Spain occupies approximately 505,000taking into account the 12,500 km2 of island surface. That makes our country one of the most extensive of the community club, together with France and Sweden and Germany.
A wide disposition of land is both an opportunity and a challenge in aspects as a distribution of the population or provision of services.
The other great conclusion left by the map Shared by Madrid projects It is the close thing that are actually the Central European metropolis and their main industrial poles, population centers and strategic axes of political decision -making, a proximity that has influenced the development and integration of Europe.
Images | Urbanity.one and Madrid projects (x)
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