DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION Population—States and Towns.—The populations of the countries of Europe, according to censuses or estimates subse quent to the last census, are given in the table opposite.
Population is increasing everywhere as a result of the develop ment of economic resources and the advance of medical science, but the rate of increase is lessening very markedly in several regions, and this is shown most typically in the decline of the birth rate, which, in England and Wales, was 16.6 per thousand in the lowest figure ever touched. The contrast between this and figures over 35 reached about 6o years ago is very striking. In Italy the diminution of death rate, though well marked, is not as striking as in Britain, and the fall of the birth rate has been much slower, the increase of population since the beginning of the cen tury has thus been nearly 25%, and this followed an increase of some 14% in the previous 20 years. The stability of the French population, with somewhat higher birth and death rates than the British, is proverbial. The fact that the German republic, shorn of so much territory through the war of 1914-18, nevertheless has a much larger total population than at the beginning of the century is a clear indication of the immense industrial develop ment that has occurred. Density of population in Belgium and the Netherlands has increased markedly in the loth century, in large measure owing to development of manufactures, as discussed in the articles on those countries, but, at the moment, England and Wales together have a slightly greater density of population even than Belgium. If the above figures be added, together it should be noted that they would give the population, not of Europe, but of Europe with a large area in Asiatic Russia.
The population and area of the British Isles and Italy are not now very different from one another, but the distribution of popu lation in the two cases does differ. In the British Isles, London, Glasgow and Birmingham overtop the million, Liverpool and Manchester exceed 750,00o and four other towns have over 300, 00o people each, ten others over 200,000 and 25 others over ioo, 000. In Italy Rome has recently exceeded the million and Milan and Naples are rapidly approaching that mark, nevertheless there *Official calculation are only eight others with over 200,000 and ten others with over Ioo,000. The contrast between the British Isles and France is equally marked, for, apart from Paris, France has one city with over 800,000, one other with over 500,00o, three others with over 200,000 and I I with over i oo,000. France has been more suc cessful than England in holding her rural and small town popula tion in several regions, though rural decreases are widespread.
France and Italy again contrast, for Paris has as many people as Rome, Milan and Naples together. Germany, with Berlin and Hamburg over the million mark, and 20 others over 300,000, five more over 200,00o, and 24 others over ioo,000, shows a con dition of much more intense urban development than is found in France, and a larger number of towns over the 300,00o mark than have the British Isles, a reflection of the fact that in Ger many there are many historic capitals of constituent States, as well as a number of great industrial centres.
Russian cities have recently enjoyed a phenomenal growth; Moscow, Leningrad and 12 others have over 300,00o people, ten more over 200,000, and 38 others over i oo,000.
The cities of Europe having over i,000,000 people each are : London* . • • 8,203,942 Warsaw . . . 1,178,211 Paris* . . . • 4,933,855 Hamburg . . . 1,125,025 Berlin* . . . . 4,236,416 Glasgow . . . 1,088,417 Moscow . . . . 3,663,3oo Rome . . . . 1,008,083 Leningrad . . . 2,776,40o Barcelona* . . . 1,005,567 Vienna . . . . 1,861,856 Birmingham . 1,002,603 Budapest* . . • *Metropolitan areas The effective population of Liverpool, of Manchester and of Birmingham is much larger than is given in the official figures for specified areas, and they are all practically agglomerates reaching or passing the million. The same reserve should be borne in mind concerning a number of Continental cities. There is a widespread tendency towards ribbon growth of cities beyond their old limits and to a decline of population at the centre, and many diverse attempts are being made to cope with the serious disadvantages of ribbon growth along the roads by planning schemes, in which Germany has shown great foresight and understanding. It seems to be widely true of cities of over 300,00o people in western Europe that they tend towards a metropolitan character, save in certain special cases, whether they are official capitals or no. It has been said in an earlier section that the idea of the city is far older in the Mediterranean region than in Europe farther north, indeed many a "village" in Italy has a more or less urban appearance, the tendency being to close agglomeration, often on hills, near a spring, and, in olden times, behind a circuit of walls. A dispersed population has become more and more characteristic of north-west Europe in recent centuries as dangers of local anarchy have diminished and agricultural improvements have broken down communal tradition.
In France the idea of the town is older than it is farther north and north-east, and quite a number of towns usually in charge of a bishop in the post-Roman centuries, survived the difficult prel ude to the middle ages and grew again as trade and intercourse developed, from the second half of the i i th century onwards. The towns on the left bank of the Rhine, and some on the Danube, also retain a measure of continuity from Roman times, but the towns farther east are, for the most part, appreciably younger. From this cause there has arisen a difference fraught with great consequences for modern political organization. As the towns of east-central Europe grew, in many cases, long after those of the west, and grew in the midst of a rurally-minded population, they often attracted to themselves people from the west, German speaking or Jewish people, who settled among Slavonic and other peoples of east-central Europe, sometimes in this way making a middle class that neither the aristocracy nor the peasantry has been able fully to assimilate to itself.
Attention may be drawn to a tendency to change in the town plan from west to east. In a French town of Roman tradition, typically ruled by a bishop in the centuries following Roman de cline, the cathedral is often the centre around which the market town is set, and often enough within the Paris basin there may not be any old town hall or other obvious mark of the burghers' power. On the borders of that basin, however, the historic town hall and the watch-tower are frequent features. Beyond the Rhine the old town is more often in the shelter of a castle, though the cathedral may be important here too. Going east one notes the frequent coupling of cathedral and palace within a stronghold, as at Prague and Cracow, and this idea is expressed most forcibly in the krem lins of the Russian cities. To understand the historic evolution of European town plans, however, one needs to have in mind many other evolutionary lines, notably the growth of maritime cities, with their groups of traders, as at Ypres, Bruges, Lubeck, etc. This has given a richness of public buildings and residences and a burgher pride which spread from the early trading cities of the coasts far inland.