*Which other cities in Europe (or the world) do you think are well located?* Also, check out the new video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/d5io26uwfMaXp9I.html

@paulochon7692

Жыл бұрын

Lille, my hometown 🤩

@ecurewitz

Жыл бұрын

Both Olso and Dubrovnik are easily defensible yet have access to trade. Messina is located as a stop point for trade across the dangerous Straits of Messina Outside Europe, New York City has a fantastic harbor and is connected to the Hudson River. And the Erie Canal was built to facilitate even more trade with the interior. Also, Singapore is perfectly situated for trade in Southeast Asia.

@Ernexor

Жыл бұрын

The city of Hamburg ("Das Tor zur Welt") is also well located in my opinion. It has always been a really important trade city for Germany and it is still one of the most important ports in Europe.

@ich_binnub7022

Жыл бұрын

I think Kiel because of the canal going from the north sea to the baltic sea well it was build 1886-1887

@kior5430

Жыл бұрын

strasbourg

Before having watched the video, as a European aware of some of our history: It's history... Near rivers, large trade roads... Everything was build around it for the last several hundred to thousand years.

@GwainSagaFanChannel

Жыл бұрын

Well yes the same applies to just about anywhere else in the world suitable location is very important for any city or town

@cowhatcat8158

Жыл бұрын

lets make a video game out of this

@mariatheresavonhabsburg

Жыл бұрын

@@cowhatcat8158 Civilization 5.

@wy_doe2320

Жыл бұрын

There is no "our" history you can't group all European history into one lol

@DardS8Br

Жыл бұрын

@@GwainSagaFanChannel Las Vegas and New Orleans be like

Because towns which are in great strategic locations often evolve into major cities, with thousands of years of civilisation, it's bound to happen.

@dutchman7623

Жыл бұрын

There were villages everywhere, but only those who had the best advantages grew to become big cities. And of course time played a role, some cities stopped growing and others took over because of circumstances.

@gilgamesh6135

Жыл бұрын

Precisely

@LaVaZ000

Жыл бұрын

@@gilgamesh6135 It's like those 25 minute videos on why "n% of x country is empty", 90, ney, 100% of the time, a geographical map of the country tells you everything you need to know.

In regards to Istanbul, I'd argue it's probably the most strategic and well located city not just in Europe but the entire world. It's nothing short of a marvel how well it's located in my opinion. Edit: Typo

@dontdoeconomics9758

Жыл бұрын

IMO only singapore has an edge over istanbul

@TzvetozarCherkezov

Жыл бұрын

No marvel, just the ingenious of the Ancient Greeks.

@roxxxydubois

Жыл бұрын

which is why the site has been continuously settled for 2700 years

@user-wh5se3cb2y

Жыл бұрын

I don't really get exactly why Istambul is so important on a global scale nowadays. Is it because of the blockade of russian navy? Because it's the only global -ish power in Black sea region. And in terms of economy there're no rich countries as well as key trade routes in global economy. Istambul's authority can't block the access to the Mediterranean sea for any major power because there're no major powers in Black sea as I see it

@tigervalley62

Жыл бұрын

@@user-wh5se3cb2y: It's nothing political. The city has always had a strong historical legacy and marvelous geographic strategic layout behind it going back thousands of years. It was even considered the 2nd Rome back in the day.

You forgot an important part in the rise of Amsterdam as an important trade city: due to its location surrounded by shallow waters, Dutch shipbuilders improved the building of flat-bottomed ships, which gave them a huge advantage in trading with less developed ports or trading posts that didn't even have a proper port.

@bbazuin

Жыл бұрын

The whole Amsterdam part of the video is sub par. The maps it shows include a lot of land and dams reclaimed up to and including the 1980s. The Zuiderzee played a key role in Amsterdam's success.

@dutchman7623

Жыл бұрын

@@bbazuin Correct! On some maps I wonder why the Romans did not use the Afsluitdijk to get to Frisia. The Noordzeekanaal saved the harbor of Amsterdam, though the Nieuwe Waterweg offered an even better chance to Rotterdam which became the biggest harbor in the world from 1900 to 1990. Around 1600 Amsterdam benefited from the closing off of the Western Scheldt to Antwerp. So also other aspects lead to city growth.

@bustavonnutz

Жыл бұрын

@@bbazuin Tbf many of the maps used in the video were awful, the silk road one during the Istanbul segment is nightmare inducing.

@GrouRocks

Жыл бұрын

@@bustavonnutz These videos are an American discovering things for the first time after a round of googling. I can't take it serious

@lucasjardimsena

Жыл бұрын

@@GrouRocks he's Portuguese lol

General Knowledge's videos make me remember the love I had for Cartography. As a kid, I spent hours looking again and again at the Atlas. Seeing climates, vegetation... Naturally, I knew a lot of capital and big cities. I always was good at History and Geopolitics at school.

@grizwoldphantasia5005

Жыл бұрын

I remember how surprised I was to read about continental drift, because like probably everybody else, I had noticed how well Africa and South America fit together.

@General.Knowledge

Жыл бұрын

I always loved maps too! History was my favorite subject at school. Geography not so much because we tended to look more at rocks and rivers and things, not so much maps themselves.

@frigginjerk

Жыл бұрын

Same here. As a kid, and still now, if you want to distract me for a while, just give me an atlas or an online map. I can spend literal hours just looking around at places.

@kadekyudhistiras

Жыл бұрын

I know I'm not alone :)

@chipaguasustudios

Жыл бұрын

Me too

Europe is also insanely well located due to its geographical features. Europe's coastline, for example, is 2x the length of Africa's coastline despite being much smaller in size. The sheer number of inlets, bays and rivers on the continent of Europe allowed a lot of cities to develop around strategic (both military and trade) locations.

@etherealbolweevil6268

Жыл бұрын

Most of these places are also very convenient for the airport.

@EveryTongueShallTell

Жыл бұрын

Do you watch Thomas Sowell?

@etherealbolweevil6268

Жыл бұрын

@@EveryTongueShallTell Never heard of her.

@EveryTongueShallTell

Жыл бұрын

@@etherealbolweevil6268 her? ur hilarious

@HoweFare

Жыл бұрын

Not as well located as North America, which has access to two oceans

I think you should talk about the Rhine/Ruhr Valley in Germany, which contains Duisburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen, Köln, etc. and is the largest population center in Germany - third largest in Europe, when the entire metro area is considered.

@General.Knowledge

Жыл бұрын

Good idea!

@Plfd

Жыл бұрын

yeah that would be a good video

@berlineczka

Жыл бұрын

There is actually more to that than just the Ruhrgebiet - a crescent of high population spreads from Englang via the Netherlands through the Ruhr Valley to Milan, incorporating about 1/7th of the entire European population. It is commonly referred to as the Blue Banana: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana

@jezusbloodie

Жыл бұрын

@@General.Knowledge fun fact, it was on the table (for a short while) for those cities and the rest of Nordrhein-Westfalen to join the Benelux. Now the first Euregio crossborder administrative municipal coop kept the border open during the chaotic national first lockdowns and was the only border to remain open like that. Even funner fact, ~~Benelux and NRW have about the same surface area, population and economic output today~~ edit: _i forgot to check sources_

@jandron94

Жыл бұрын

The idea was at one time that the whole left bank of the Rhine shall belong to France.

It's more like natural selection. Cities were placed everywhere, but the ones in best locations grew faster.

@arta.xshaca

Жыл бұрын

Exactly.

@FOLIPE

Жыл бұрын

That, and it also happened elsewhere in the world. Of course in some cases cities are founded in a place because its strategic, but that doesn't mean that the new settlement will outcompete the other strategic towns around it.

@adahbafa22

Жыл бұрын

And some have had better and worse moments, Sevilla was quite irrelevant until the American trade and after the decline of Spain it has returned to a position of geostrategical irrelevance and now is the 4th city in Spain by population size. Nonetheless i have to say that most Roman towns have survived quite well, not only because there were many and they were the oldest, which gave them advantage but because the Romans had a deep sense of geographical context, both local and continental (when they achieved a good cartographical knowledge).

@xXxSkyViperxXx

Жыл бұрын

humans lived everywhere. the best locations simply grew into the best cities

@mirandapillsbury7885

Жыл бұрын

exactly

The cities are insanely well located because good city locations encourage people to build cities there

@General.Knowledge

Жыл бұрын

It's true!

@-Teus-

Жыл бұрын

Or settlements in good locations are most likely to grow to a prospering city

@zlosliwa_menda

Жыл бұрын

​@@General.Knowledge One may even succumb to a creeping suspicion that it is obvious, to the point of being a truism. But then the premise of the video would be quite silly, and very obviously would extend to all major cities around the world, Europe being in no way exceptional in this regard.

I think there are hidden factors not mentioned wrt some of these cities. A particular one is the geological concept of the fall line. It is where the uplands and lowlands meet, and where the furthest a seagoing ship can go up a river until becomes too shallow. Atlas Pro made a video about it, explaining why the US Eastern seaboard has a string of cities on a straight line. In this video, those cities would be London, Paris, and Seville.

Fun fact; In the early stages the city of St. Petersburg didn't have any bridges as Peter the Great was an advocate for sea faring and demanded his citizens to learn the "ropes". It took couple of boat accidents one involving foreign diplomats to finally persuade the Tsar to get on with the bridges.

@Wetepok

Жыл бұрын

именно поэтому я уехал в южную Германию. Тут тепло, сухо, солнечно, хорошая экология и отличные зарплаты.

@cerryoshavot

Жыл бұрын

Из-за того, что в Санкт-Петербурге мосты?

One thing I noticed you missed, mentioning Copenhagen is that the scania region used to be Danish as well. During the 17th century IIRC cannons became so powerful that it was impossible to cross the øresund sound outside of the field of fire from the "twin fortresses" helsingør and helsingborg. Allowing the Danes to tax and tariff all seaborne trade between the Atlantic and the Baltic sea

Constantine originally called Byzantium Nova Roma, or New Rome, but Constantinopolis, Contantine's City, was just a nickname that caught on.

@mortache

Жыл бұрын

Yeah and it was I think after the lifetime of Constantine

@MCArt25

Жыл бұрын

same as with Istanbul nowadays, which was just a nickname that caught on until it officially replaced "Kostantiniyye"

I’m surprised you didn’t include Milan. Milan - whose name, not coincidentally, means ‘in the middle of the land’ - is ideally located halfway between central-northern Europe and the Mediterranean on the one hand, and between Western and Eastern Europe on the other hand, which turned it into a major trade hub and a cultural melting pot across the centuries. Also, Milan sits in the middle of an alluvial plain that is literally soaked in aquifers (the vastest rice pads outside Asia are here), making it one of the most fertile soils in the world. The Alps protect it from excess cold from the north and the Apennines from excess heat from the south. The city is sided East and West by two rivers both at the local level (the small Lambro and Seveso rivers) and at the regional level (the Adda and Ticino rivers), but it’s not crossed by any, ensuring abundant water without any risk of flooding. It is said that the Celts founded it as a religious centre, and its position on the 45th parallel - I.e. exactly halfway between the North Pole and the Equator - must have had some astronomical significance to their druids, but there’s no doubt it’s also a perfect strategic location, as proved by the city’s consistent success through the centuries.

@genwilbolandres980

Жыл бұрын

Are you saying Milan is the perfect place in the world ???

@valeriansmith4789

Жыл бұрын

I hate Milan urbanism, it’s industrial, no river, no hills, it’s maybe well located in term of defense like you said.

@adapienkowska2605

Жыл бұрын

How on earth Milan is located between Western and Eastern Europe? It is close to being in the middle of Western Europe and is separated from the Northern Europe by the Alps. Vienna is far better located in that regard - actually being between Western and Eastern Europe and between Northern and Southern Europe, and NOT obstructed by the largest mountains on the continent. It even has a pretty easy route to Italy.

@Quetzietse

Жыл бұрын

But the city is also easy to attack and lies in the plain that every army that ever invaded the Italian peninsula goes through. That is a pretty big drawback. I'd rank it similar to Venice, which is actually pretty defensible but has a giant drawback in it being built on shakey ground. You can't be one of the cities in this line-up if you have a giant flaw like that, Milan is definitely not top 5 material.

@alejandroojeda1572

Жыл бұрын

Well, Milan IS terrificly positioned for being a regional power. It however lacks a couple of things: 1) easy access to the global market. The alps and appenines HUGE defensive qualities come at the cost of relative isolation. It has been a running theme on the history of northern Italy. The topography induces medium sized regional powers, such as Milan, Savoy, and Venice but It prevents further expansion outside the peninsula. This has seen them at the mercy of foreign powers expanding into the region. Even to this day Italy surfers from some forma of disconnection to the rest of Europe. (Hey It could be worse, look at Spain and Romania) Otherwise, Milan IS fricking brillant.

as a born and raised Tyrolean, I gotta throw in Innsbruck as a perfectly placed city. It has a river (actually two but only one of them had relevance for trade) and is placed within a fairly often used trade route from north to south through the Alps. You had to pass by Innsbruck of you wanted to move to the Brenner Pass which is the gateway to Italy and the Mediterranean Sea for much of Northern Europe

@Simonb1977

Жыл бұрын

if you want to trade in large quantities from southern to northern Europe, the easiest (and safest) way is to bypass the Alps altogether and go by ship from Italy, around Spain, past France and on to northern Europe

@zarathustra7291

Жыл бұрын

Innsbruck is a fantastic city.

@Hastdupech8509

Жыл бұрын

​@@Simonb1977 But not if you have to move armies from Central Europe down to the peninsula or have to control it (ahem, HRE or the Habsburgs). Also, it is much lower in altitude than other Alpine passes. Plus, today the Brenner pass is the most trafficked land connection (both with freight and people) between Italy and abroad, especially Northern Italy and Germany, which have the tightest commercial relation (from N Italy's pov) and the 5th tightest from a German pov (or so I remembered).

@fauvilein

Жыл бұрын

@@Hastdupech8509 yes, they are not building the Brenner base tunnel for nothing. But sure, it probably is way easier to go there by ship but according to the amount of trucks through Tyrol it is strongly needed.

Good video. For future reference, 'Thames' is pronounced 'temz'.

General knowledge❤️KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK. I love watching your videos!❤️Alway's remember to keep your head up high and held high and keep doing what you love and what makes you happy

Great video, it also shows how great and influncial the Romans and the Roman Empire was and is today as more than half of the cities mentioned were established by them

That was utterly fascinating. Thank you for making this video.

@General.Knowledge

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching!

0:58 Respect for showing Civ V instead of Civ VI, you really are a man of culture

@rjgraddy11

Жыл бұрын

But Civ iii and Civ iv are objectively superior to Civ v 😊

Can you also do the exact opposite The worst located capitals in Europe and maybe the world

@pabblo1

Жыл бұрын

One of the worst located capitals in Europe would be Warsaw, as it's located in a very flat area (but again, so does most of Poland, except for the very southern parts of it), which had made it very easy for neighbors to invade.

@comradekapibarchik7997

Жыл бұрын

@@pabblo1 well, all of Eastern Europe is extremely plain, not just Poland

@AccranLP

Жыл бұрын

@@pabblo1 i think that is why for a long time the polish capital was in krakow, having the tatary (hope that s what they are called in English) in its back

@benismann

Жыл бұрын

@@pabblo1 well warsaw sits on a cool river crossing, so maybe that why

@Cecilia-ky3uw

Жыл бұрын

@@pabblo1 this applies to lower Germany, and most of eastern europe in general, the myth of a geographically weak poland is a big myth, the germans also had a lot of flat territory with no natural boundaries, so did the russians until they secured them and lost them AGAIN, so did every other ethnix group in eastern europe although the finno ugrics and south slavs get a lot of help from the mountains.

Great video as always!

Lisbon is one of the ancient cities of the world, in Europe just behind Athens as a small settlement. Olisipo was a roman settlement yes, but only around 140 B.C. or so. Having a big natural harbor with easy entry to the Tagus river, Lisbon for sure was built inside the estuary for defense of pirates and barbarian raids. Comparing to other European cities and having already been the most important city in the World in the XV century, Lisbon had a major growth issue which was the lack of fresh water as again the Tagus river estuary has brackish water. The solution to this problem was finally solved in 1750 with the construction of a very big aqueduct, one of the last of its kind and luckily survived a very strong earthquake in 1755 which shocked all Europe.

Thanks for this uploading, General Knowledge. As an adoptive British fan of Real Betis I was especially gratified to see Seville getting an honourable mention. I hadn't really been aware of how it had been an actual port city.

Paris was originally built on an island in the middle of the Seine "l’Île de la cité" (which was great for defense/protection, and to allow and control its crossing). Then it grew in size to span both banks, aided by easy transport/commerce via the river.

@sydhenderson6753

Жыл бұрын

In fact that location was precisely why the Vikings couldn't capture it.

An excellent port at the mouth of a major river is pretty well guaranteed to be a very good location. Here in north America there are four cities that have superb locations on rivers that access the continent's tremendous inland waterway system. New Orleans and Montreal are as far as sailing ships could easily go up 2 rivers that enabled one to reach the entire center of the continent. Chicago was built where those 2 waterways were within a few kilometres of one another. And New York was an exceptional port that was also situated at the mouth of a smaller river that was a shortcut to the inland waterways

@ferentcristian6455

Жыл бұрын

Don't forget that those cities were established by Europeans.

@HowlingWolf518

Жыл бұрын

Ditto Vancouver and San Fran. Granted, the Sacramento and Fraser don't span the continent, but provincial/state industries depend on them.

Thanks for the Video :)

Congrats. Great video!

Amsterdam used to be an important city, but now it is Rotterdam. The port of Rotterdam is currently 40 km long and is a transit port for the Ruhr area in Germany. A special (semi-automated) separate freight railway (172 km) worth 5 billion euros has even been built from Rotterdam to the German border.

@mylordandsaviour4786

Жыл бұрын

Yes, but there is the same development as in England with the Northern regions taking much of the industrialization while London remained a finanicial and service hub, a bit like with the industry and trade heavy Ritterdam and the finance and services heavy Amsterdam.

Gibraltar was named after the "Rock" of Gibraltar in Arabic Jebel-Tariq, literally "Mount Tariq" named after Tariq Bin-Ziad, the general of the first conquests into Andalusia. Pretty important piece of etymological origin since you went down that road...

@maddogbasil

Жыл бұрын

Tru Andalusian managed to keep yhe rest of the northenr Europeans who were basically barbarians at that point Connected to the wider global economy

@animatorofanimation128

Жыл бұрын

@@maddogbasil Charlemagne's empire definitely wasn't the "barbaric" Europe people think the dark ages were, historians generally disregard that line of thinking nowadays. It wasn't as great as say, Bagdad, but it was highly cultured and civilized

@12vscience

Жыл бұрын

And before that I believe Gibraltar was called one of the Pillars of Hercules.

@mortache

Жыл бұрын

@@animatorofanimation128 Carolingian Renaissance was essentially Europe starting to come out of the dark ages. For over 200 years after the fall of western Rome, the Gothic kingdoms etc didn't have any massive building projects. But Charlemagne went to Ravenna (which was the western capital) to then emulate those Roman balisilicas in his own empire

@rizkyadiyanto7922

Жыл бұрын

almost correct. its jabar al-thariq.

The river Thames is pronounced 'TEMS' It makes me laugh how many people still don't know this. 🙄🤣

@adurmus12

Жыл бұрын

As a turkish, even i know that

You pronounce İstanbul very accurately and that oddly makes me happy lol

@General.Knowledge

Жыл бұрын

I usually mispronounce most non-english words so I'm glad!

@Joshua-fi4ji

Жыл бұрын

@@General.Knowledge you mispronounced Thames fyi. Pronounced more like Tems.

Venice has a great historical location, similar to St.Petersburg at the end point of a inclosed sea, also it was a major port during the Middle Ages, similar to other cities is near the mouth of the Po river. Other cities like Ravena had similar qualities but since they are no longer have ports Venice wins

as a native resident of Saint Petersburg, the city freaking sucks sometimes. it was built on a swamp (because Peter I was a hellbent idiot) so the construction took thousands of lives; the combination of swamp humidity & constant windy, cloudy, rainy weather can easily make you depressed to live here. Imagine London but more windy. on a plus side though the coastal location means the temperature changes frequently so it's never too hot or too cold for a long time. also, it is an important port but it doesn't have a direct access to the ocean. Northern Europe can easily blockade any ship coming from Russia which has happened multiple times throughout history and even right now. its location also makes it an easy target for invasion because it's too close to other countries. Germany easily sieged it with the help of Finland in WW2 despite the fact that our border with Finland was moved more west. imagine if Spb was the capital at the time? again, not a wise decision for Peter I to move it. but it's pretty, I guess.

@sandraleiva1633

Жыл бұрын

He wasn't an idiot. Russia doesn't have good warm ports. Ports are needed for countries to prosper. Crimea didn't belong to Russia for some centuries to come. You should learn history before making comments you don't understand. That's the whole reason Russia took back Crimea from the Ukraine.

@user-ed7ji1br7d

Жыл бұрын

St Petersburg is the closest possible port to Moscow. It's the main reason for a construction of the city here. If you make a circle with a center in Moscow and an edge near St. Petersburg, the only place where this circle touches sea/ocean is St. Petersburg. Thus the straight road from Moscow to St. Petersburg is the CHEAPEST way to supply Moscow and other populous part of Russia and to export production from Russia. It's all about MONEY. That's why St. Petersburg exists. The cities which location looks alike are (going from East to West): Tianjin, Bangkok, Kolkata, Karachi, Basra, Rostov-on-Don, Odesa, Triest, Venice, Genoa, Marseille, Houston, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires.

@stvk99

Жыл бұрын

​@@sandraleiva1633 yes, I know. we were always desperate for them warm waters😂but Crimea while being more strategically important than access to the Baltic is in the exact same situation - ships need to pass Bosforus and Gibraltar before reaching the ocean. in my opinion, we need to develop Pacific (even though Japan is kinda hostile with Kurils and stuff) and Arctic ocean ports. we now have the technology of ice breakers unlike in the 16th century, plus climate change might help us as well. we won't depend on anyone's mercy to freely navigate around the world. although that is on hold right now, for obvious reasons...

@apveening

Жыл бұрын

@@stvk99 And thanks to the idiot antics of Putin Russia will lose Outer Manchuria including Vladivostok to West Taiwan.

@stvk99

Жыл бұрын

@@apveening hahaha, sure mate. Any moment now🤓

Very nice video Timestamps are very nice too

I think the Belgrade is very well located, I am surprised you haven't mantioned it.

i would add two more cities to the list. Vienna, sitiing at the end of the alps, at the danube river. protected on the eastside by the river and in the north and west of some hills, also one of the most eastern city of westeurope, being extremly central to to the north, south east and west. Lyon is very well placed too. the old town is packed between two big rivers, very well protected from enemies and it lays very central, in france. Its still having effects of the mediterenian weather but always having water (also in the summer, because summer in the mediterrenian is often very dry). so in a very good farming region

@jandron94

Жыл бұрын

The "old town" only. Lyon is almost surrounded by mountains, pushed aside by the bulky massif central, it sits in a valley... Too far from the extremities. Strasbourg, Brest, Bordeaux, Liège, etc. Paris sits on a straight line from extremities (hence the Paris centric TGV network). Lyon has river access to the Med and not the Atlantic.

Another city that could have been added to this video is Athens. It is located strategically in the centre-south of Greece and at the southern part of the Balkan peninsula, lying extremely close to the port of Piraeus, the largest in the Mediterranean. On its other 3 sides it is surrounded by mountains, serving as natural fortifications and in the past it has rivers providing frest water to the city. It is the gateway to the Aegean and the Mediterranean or to the Balkans and central Europe, depending on your direction.

@goldfinger0303

Жыл бұрын

Athens is not that greatly situated compared to any of these cities though. In reality, as soon as its empire collapsed to the Macedonians, it fairly quickly turned into a backwater city during Roman and later Ottoman times.

@nicon1391

Жыл бұрын

@@goldfinger0303 Most european cities and capitals were conquered at some point in their history or went through periods of decline, that doesn't diminish their geopolitical and geographical value.

@goldfinger0303

Жыл бұрын

@@nicon1391 You're right. London was captured several times. As was Milan, Byzantium, etc etc. Except those cities remained relevant in whatever new Empire occupied them. Athens was irrelevant during Roman rule and Ottoman rule, and only began to become relevant again in the past few decades due to the port of Piraeus. Thessaloniki was a more important city for much of history.

Don't forget Liverpool one of the best Locations

@teethgrinder83

Жыл бұрын

And Glasgow with the Clyde when ship building was huge lol

@trevorwatts8541

Жыл бұрын

Yeesir

@joostprins3381

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, great connection to the rest of Europe….

@joostprins3381

Жыл бұрын

Rotterdam, for decades the biggest port of the world, now still of Europe, Rotterdam is way more important then Amsterdam and the port for Germany.

@teethgrinder83

Жыл бұрын

@@joostprins3381 that's a really good point, that place has such a massive amount of cargo coming in and now still im surprised it wasn't mentioned. Is it a very old city or relatively new (in European terms, I'm sure you know what I mean lol)

A lot of strategic value comes from the ability to access water and these cities are insanely well placed. I would be interested in a video about cities where their access to water isn't the main reason why they are so well placed but some other reason.

@apveening

Жыл бұрын

There is one in the video (Paris).

Amsterdam actually only became an important trade city, and the leader in global trade during the 17th century. That happened during the 80 years war, also known as the Dutch Revolt. It took over the position from Antwerp, when that city remained in Spanish hands, and it’s population fled up north or were killed by the Spanish. The strategic location of Amsterdam on the shores of the former Zuiderzee(Southern Sea), and at the mouth of the large river delta of Meuse & Rhine ) helped too. This meant it was ideally placed for trade on the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the major trade with the Far East.

@sydhenderson6753

3 ай бұрын

Antwerp was a perfect location when the Netherlands included what is now Belgium, prior to the Dutch revolt. Afterward it was easily blockaded by the Dutch.

@MLWitteman

3 ай бұрын

@@sydhenderson6753 exactly

Rivers or bodies of water in general I always assumed. St. Petersburg was for that reason anyways, so I imagine many others were similar. The few that aren't near bodies of water are usually chosen for defensive locations.

Very good and interesting video. It could be the start of a series of videos as there are many European cities with excellent locations.

European: lets build the capital city un this river and this place so we control commerce and the entrance of the city Some spanish king: put it on the middle *Makes Madrid*

@xangarabana

Жыл бұрын

lol

As Europeans founded many of the major cities in other continents, there are many examples outside of Europe with similar strategic positions. Think of New York, Rio de Janeiro or Cape Town for instance. I think what often sets them apart from other cities is Europeans emphasis on water as mechanism for trade, rather than trade routes on land.

@FOLIPE

Жыл бұрын

You really think that only europeans founded cities in such strategic places? I don't know whether that's sad of pitiful

@jeroenska.

Жыл бұрын

@@FOLIPE of course not, but in relation to the video I mentioned cities that were found by Europeans but not in Europe. Then I mentioned their relation to water as something that sets them apart from cities founded by natives. For instance the ancient cities of Mesopotamia were found on rivers but as a source of water in the desert. Not because of trade, which happened mostly on land. So besides the water source their foundations lie in land trade routes. Every city was founded in their location because of the constraints of their time and place.

@magical11

Жыл бұрын

@@jeroenska. Most major cities sit on waterways as a source of fresh water and trade. It's not at all a uniquely European thing. Shanghai sits on the mouth of a major river. So does Hong Kong and Guang Zhou and Tokyo. It's probably the exception for a major city to not sit on a river/harbour. Also the ancient Mesopotamians 100% used the Euphrates and Tigris as a transport route. They were vital to the ancient trade economy.

@jeroenska.

Жыл бұрын

@@magical11 and was irrelevant until it was one of the 5 Chinese ports that had to open up to European traders in the 19th century. Of course other cultures had their own reasons for the placement of their cities, all I'm saying is that they're different than the ones Europeans had.

@magical11

Жыл бұрын

@@jeroenska. Irrelevant ... to who? The Europeans? No shit. But your head must be way up your ass if you think Guang Zhou was "irrelevant" to China and East Asian trade. It must have had some significance if it was one of the biggest cities in the world for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

naples is also build on a strategic (and wonderful, btw) location, in the centre of mediterranean sea and still representing nowadays an important commercial and tourist port

@bigz4302

Жыл бұрын

True but Naples likely wouldn't have grown into such a valuable port if not for the fact it was the capital of a major Italian nation for much of the middle ages all the way up to Italian reunification. Some cities become strategic because of Human factors rather than geographic ones. Naples definitely deserves its own video

@giuseppebottone8306

Жыл бұрын

@@bigz4302 really deserves it

It would be really interesting to talk about cities that grew up around a trade feature changed or coped when that feature changed. Ports silting up; Mills and mines closing, etc.

The French actually replicate that model while colonising North America. When you look at cities like Quebec City, you can clearly see why would one settle there. Quebec means where the river narrows, and it couldn't be more accurate. The country that controls Quebec city controls the access to Canada. They did the same in New Orleans, if you control New Orleans, you have control over everything that go into the Mississippi River.

Honorable mentions: -Constanța, Romania -Kiev, Ukraine -Kaliningrad, Russia -Riga, Latvia -Novgorod Russia -Antioch,Turkey -Frankfurt, Germany -Venice/Genoa, Italy -Dubrovnik, Croatia -Hamburg, Germany -Barcelona, Spain -Sevastopol, Ukraine -Akkerman, Ukraine -Kruje/Durres, Albania -Galați, Romania -Moscow, Russia -Bucharest, Romania -Stockholm Sweden -Syracuse, Italy -Skhodra, Albania -Galați, Romania -Thesaloniki, Greece -Izmir, Turkey

@bloodkelp

Жыл бұрын

Kiev

@fallendown8828

Жыл бұрын

How the fuck is Trebizond strategically well placed? It is literally middle of nowhere. It was mountainous tribal lands of caucasia at it's east, great towering mountains at it's south, a loong mountainous coastline that can not be easily used for transportation in it's west and the only good thing going for it in it's north the Black Sea. But there is much better places that is at the coast of Black Sea and is on top of trade routes rather than middle of nowhere. By the way i am a Turk and only reason Trebizond had any importance was people who feared just escaped to this place so they can be as far away from invasions like Muslims and Turks coming and it kinda became big on Rum culture it had since it is middle of nowhere and extra hard to govern or encourage people to settle to assimilate

@benismann

Жыл бұрын

novgorod but no moscow?

@grimbledore2972

Жыл бұрын

What is antioch we dont have antioch city

@cgt3704

Жыл бұрын

@@grimbledore2972 i meant the current turkish city of Antakya, as its built on the same spot as the former one

"If the world was only one country, Constantinople would be its capital" - Napoleon Bonapart

@FOLIPE

Жыл бұрын

Well his empire was basically an european empire.

Lisboan is so well located that it suffered one of history's worse earthshake

Like the video, really well done and interesting, one small detail the river Thames in London is pronounced tems not thames

If some Romans (or any contemporaries) put a badly placed city, there probably wouldn't be a modern equivalent, but instead some burial mound which has ruins beneath. If the location sucks enough, even if people were foolish enough to settle once they'll eventually get the message. Apparently, earthquakes do happen elsewhere besides Japan and California and unlike the places hit by quakes around the Mississippi, the few places hit by them in Europe are conspicuously rural.

@yjlom

Жыл бұрын

well there was the great lisbon earthquake back in the 17th? I don't remember century

@Cecilia-ky3uw

Жыл бұрын

@@yjlom it was a very unexpected occurence

@hbowman108

Жыл бұрын

the few places hit by them in Europe are conspicuously rural. Istanbul. Yeah, I know, claim it's not in Europe.

@alex_zetsu

Жыл бұрын

@@yjlom This is true, but if you take a heatmap of quake frequencies and then compare them to a standard railroad map (or anything that would have the cities), the hot spots in Europe tend around either rural areas or ruins. Poor Lisbon didn't get _0_ quakes though. This is true of most places, except in North America, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan for some reason there is little correlation between the quakes and the population.

@hbowman108

Жыл бұрын

European earthquake zones are relatively unattractive because of their lack of soil-enriching volcanic activity. Mexico and Central America come to mind as an example. The European cities near volcanoes are, of course, Naples, Catania, and the marginally European examples of Yerevan and Kayseri. Oh, and St. Étienne. Those last three have no eruptions in the last few thousand years.

"to Gibraltar, part the UK, at least for now".... Excuse me?? Is there something I need to be telling my relatives in Gibraltar? Such a weird statement.

@ProfessorArcanum

Жыл бұрын

I was wondering if anyone caught this. The guy in the video showing some bias there, perhaps ?

@colorful2821

Жыл бұрын

Morocco will take it back. LMFAO😅

@HCMCDrives

Жыл бұрын

@@colorful2821 :D

@lamemechose7072

Жыл бұрын

I interpreted it as “lots of places are deeply unhappy with British rule/the Monarch/monarchy in general & want self-governance, so maybe they will try to liberate themselves”. It didn’t feel “omg everyone take down your Union Jacks this weekend!”. I’m not making a prediction or assertion of anything, just sharing my personal interpretation.

@ProfessorArcanum

Жыл бұрын

@@lamemechose7072 but those people are British so it's a weird statement

I would really like second video with more European cities. Great video

I personally love the history of Nantes in France, a small Gaulish tribes settle near the edge of the river Loire and at the estuary, becomes a Roman city after the conquest but a relatively small one compared to Rezé which was further down the estuary on the southern side of the river. Starts thriving once the Germanics are coming as it possessed walls, but afterward by the times Vikings settled themselves on the island of Nantes and its surrounding smaller island the city was pretty much abandonned because its strategical value was just destroyed and its relative distance from the center of the Kingdom meant it wasnt worth it to live there. But then a King of the Bretons came in to reconquer the place from the Vikings and essentially rebuilt and resettled the place over time to become the capital of the Dukes of Brittany, because its strategic placement allowed it to controll trade over the largest river in France

one very underrated city is the city of Trondheim, Norway. Throghout history it's been very defensible due to the river running through it, which serves as a natural moot

@ferentcristian6455

Жыл бұрын

Norways and Swedens city name sounds so bad ass. Trondheim sounds amazing as a city name.

@blackfang101

Жыл бұрын

Pretty much every major city in norway is very underrated as far as positions go, well, that is as long as you don't take the climate and the issue of an overall lack of farmlands in the wider area into account. The amount of properly successful invasions of norway by anyone but other norwegians can be counted on half a hand, and one of them started with every single one of these major locations occupied before any war was even declared.

Just a small note. The River Thames is pronounced Tems, as it comes from the Latin name for the river, Tamesis

You should do a video like this but for the America's! There are a bunch that are super well located like San Juan, Puerto Rico due to it being the gate to the Caribbean and that it was used for replenishment of supplies from Spain on its way to other spanish colonies

5:23 did London really looked like that? It seems like some steampunk fantasy city, looks amazing!

I think that Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, could be on this list because almost all the rivers of the Pannonian plain flow towards that city and the mouths of those rivers into the Danube are not far from that city. when we add to that the fact that the Pannonian plain is somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe due to the mountains that surround it, the location not far from one of the main exits from the lowlands is what adds to its importance!

@catenaris

Жыл бұрын

However, isn't it impossible (at least nowadays) to ship boats through the danube all the way to Constanța and beyond because of some poor renewal combined to the low depth of the river and some corruption issues? If that's indeed the case, it reduces the strategic value of the city (less for trade and it would still be a factor for fresh water, but still a risk factor for flooding). When I look at Ventusky in the summer and see the extreme heats in the Pannonian Basin, especially considering it's expected to get worse quicklier as other places, I often somehow think that nowadays it isn't such a valuable location as it may once have been 😄 But maybe I'm overlooking something!

Belgrade is an example of how being well located can be both blessing and a curse, besieged around 140 times destroyed 40 times...

You should make a series on this, maybe 8-10 cities each time, rank the cities from the episode, then put them into the top 50… is Lyon better located than Madrid? Maybe it’s subjectively impossible to make criteria but that hasn’t stopped any KZreadr I ever saw

I'm surprised you didn't mention Moscow, being located strategically where it could control alot of the inland trade over the various rivers that would come to make up Russia, Kyev could've been mentioned for the same reason

@georgiykireev9678

Жыл бұрын

"Varangians to Greeks", a crucial trade route back in the day. The only reason it became less relevant in the last couple of centuries is because cargo ships got too big for rivers, so now going all the way around Europe is more efficient

Belgrade is older and bigger then half of the cities you showed at begining, it has a incredibly strategic location, devia ver isso melhor, cumprimentos!

I would add Cologne. When it was founded (together with its twin city Deutz) by the Romans, it controlled the Rhine and thus the border between the Roman Empire and the barbarian lands to the east. In medieval times, it sat right on the most important West-East trading route, which ran just north of the mountain ranges of the Central Holy Roman Empire, thus being both easy to travel, but close to the sources of precious metals and textile products. During the industrialization, it was close to the iron works of the Ruhr area and to the Dutch harbors, turning Cologne in an important traffic hub.

I knew you were going to talk about Sevilla (my homecity) before starting the video

Could you do an asian version of this? LIke I do believe that European cities have an extreme edge over city location but I would love to see a asian version of this. Like wouldn't want to know how china, japan or india's extremely important cities gained there current locations?

@HernasRoom

Жыл бұрын

Japan, specifically, doesn't really have a strategic city. It has a megalopolis, which crosses a large part of the country in the shape of a "belt." That entire corridor is the heart of the country.

@darkorange835

Жыл бұрын

@@HernasRoom now thats some amazing info about a city i have no idea about. Thanks for this my guy.

@Xdalz27

Жыл бұрын

Many cities build in bad place for asia That's why many countries in asia want to move their capital somewhere else

@Xdalz27

Жыл бұрын

Like Dhaka,Bangkok, and Jakarta it's flooding or sinking

@darkorange835

Жыл бұрын

@@Xdalz27 yeah i know that but there must have been reasons why some cities are built right now. Like coastal cities were built due to their being a natural docking station. Like i think in the Indian city of Chennai and kochi both being like super important coastal cities due to their significance in coastal trade and military. Other examples like Beijing and Shanghai are for political and historical significance. And other examples could be seol the s.korean capital for being built on top of the river Han making it very important for trade, commerce and political control.

Actually, Paris' location is quite terrible. Too close to the Benelux, it means that it has always been a weak spot for France. During WW1, there was a LOT of worry that it would be taken by Germany early on (think Schlieffen plan), and it fell quickly during WW2. You don't want your capital in Europe too close to a border. A good city in location is, actually, Kyoto, in Japan. Surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and with a rive on the southern, undefended side, it was basically an impregnable fortress back in samurai times.

@mrsupremegascon

Жыл бұрын

A city is either well located for trade/administration or well located for defense. You can't have both. A city like Kyoto surrounded by mountains is great to defend, but not to trade or being the center of the country. That's why Tokyo took over eventually.

Paris is - located in Ile-de-France, a region with the best soil for farming (surpassed in Europe by only Ukraine) - the Seine river and its affluents are navigable far inland, helping project the central authority of the king, a reason why the Franks moved their capital from Reims to Paris.

I´d like to se a part two of this video

How about Belgrade? On two rivers and just under big Panonian flat ground

Shoutout to Stockholm, located on a small island in a river and built out as time went onwards. Very strategic.

Hello from Saint-Petersburg :D

4:25 The Thames River is not pronounced how it's spelt, rather it's pronounced closer to "tems."

@timothymeyer3210

Жыл бұрын

also its the River Thames, not the Thames River

@abdiganisugal825

Жыл бұрын

@@timothymeyer3210thanks, turns out you're correct. A bit strange though since its the thames river is used in a number of bbc shows.

@dgm66

Жыл бұрын

Okay, we get it. No need for dozens of comments about it.

@abdiganisugal825

Жыл бұрын

@@dgm66 I think I was the first to comment it. If i knew others would comment about it after me i wouldn't have bothered.

On one hand it makes sense, on the other it's unfortunate that you didn't choose any inland cities for this video. The mouth of a river, access to the sea and a strategic position is usually easy to find on a coast. Inland cities are much harder to place and some aren't really that well placed from a geographic, or strategic point of view - Berlin comes to mind. An example for an extremly well placed city would be Passau in Germany, sitting right where two of central Europe's largest rivers meet, they could capitalise on shipping trade, had ample access to fresh water and the land around it is flat enough to provide for farming.

@SuperHipsterGamer

Жыл бұрын

What do you mean? Neither London or Paris are coastal.

@harrytheprince6951

Жыл бұрын

@@SuperHipsterGamer As for London, I‘d argue that the Thames is almost as wide as a loch until close to the outskirts of the city. When it comes to Paris I have to admit that I was completely wrong. I thought the sea to city layout was similar to London - a very wide river until almost at the city borders, but the Seine is much narrower. So Paris is actually pretty much what I meant. But still, another example would be analysing why Madrid is where it is. Inland cities are more complex from a historical point of view. Streets were harder to build compared to a port and as a result, trade was limited. So there must be different reasons why Leipzig for example, became a local trading hub and member of the Hanseatic League iirc.

@hbowman108

Жыл бұрын

"sitting right where two of central Europe's largest rivers meet" I thought this was silly, but then I realized that being in North America might reset my scale on "large" rivers by a lot. Passau is at the junction of the Danube and the Inn.

Lisbon was so well placed for the age of discoveries that when the Iberian union happened the king of Spain considered moving his capital there since it was better located to rule his overseas colonies. He was counselled against it and never did it, but had he moved his capital its unlikely that Portugal would have been to break away. And just to clarify, Lisbon wasn't created as Roman settlement like London, archaeology shows people living there since the stone age and its one of the oldest human settlements on Earth.

@MCArt25

Жыл бұрын

yea a lot of Southern Spanish and Portuguese settlements date back to the Phoeniceans or even before that era the Iberian peninsula was an important mining area during the ancient era, a lot of metal ore in those mountains that was easy to reach

@XcUtiOn96

Жыл бұрын

"the king of Spain considered moving his capital there since it was better located to rule his overseas colonies". Why would Philip II want to move his seat of power to Lisbon when he was the one that made Madrid the capital because he wanted to rule directly from a place he had 100% control over? With this I'm not saying that moving the capital to Lisbon wouldn't have been the best decision (in fact, making Madrid the capital ended up being one of the worst decisions he could make since the city at the time was in the middle of nowhere and had no navigable rivers, which ended up making Madrid a parasitic city that competed with Toledo and Valladolid and made both of them lose population), but what you said is just a popular legend without any document that could back it up.

@VRDejaVu

Жыл бұрын

hum, what? No. No Portuguese city could have been the capital of Spain since they weren't the same country. One easy way to see it is that the same king that was Filipe II of Spain was named Filipe I of Portugal cause although both countries had the same king they were still 2 countries. Portugal and Spain had a Dualist Monarchy during those 60 or so years.

Presence of a river is not only irrigation waste and fresh water but mostly about we used them as giant Hightways into the country.

Istanbul I'd not the Turkish capital

Great video! Amsterdam was originally not that well located, as it was surrounded by swamps and the area had to deal with floods regularly during storms. The later Dutch waterworks like dykes and polders massively improved this. In the 19th century a large canal was dug straight west to connect Amsterdam to the North Sea, and in the 20th century another canal was dug connecting Amsterdam to the Rhine river. Amsterdam always had competition from London and especially Antwerp, also well located trade ports, and later Hamburg at the German Elbe river mouth. Another Dutch city that is extremely well located is Rotterdam, at the mouth of both the Rhine and Meuse rivers, and indirectly also the Scheldt river. Among other benefits, the Rhine connects the highly industrialized Ruhr area in Germany to the rest of the world. Rotterdam actually expanded into the North Sea, creating land to facilitate extended construction of the port, warehouses, and oil silos. This allowed Rotterdam to become the biggest trade port in Europe, and for some time even the world until several East Asian ports overtook it. Talking about the rest of the world, I would nominate New York, Guangzhou/Canton, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dhaka and of course Shanghai for being excellently located for trade. All are located at river mouths connecting them to the hinterland, and major international trade ports. I recently read up on the construction of the almost 600 km long Erie Canal connecting New York to the Great Lakes, making it the main thoroughfare for people migrating west and growing it into the main US East Coast port. Fascinating history. What made and makes all these cities so great is not only their ability to trade, but also the toll revenue from passing ships for which these cities had to do nothing but exist in the right spot.

@apveening

Жыл бұрын

Before the "Noordzeekanaal" (due west of Amsterdam) was dug, there already was the "Noordhollandsch Kanaal", about due north of Amsterdam for the same reason, but less successful. In Asia I would also mention Hong Kong, there was a reason it was a British colony.

One of the worst strategically positions capital cities in Europe is Warsaw: in the middle of a wide plain, no natural barriers for miles in every direction, the only hindrance to the city was the river Vistula from the east. However, the reason it was founded there is interesting: it was chosen for being halfway between Cracow and Vilnius, the capital of the Kingdom of Poland and the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, respectively. The countries were united in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between 14th and 18th centuries. When the parliaments of Poland and Lithuania were merged in 1569, the new Sejm was meeting halfway between the capitals. Shortly, Warsaw -thus far a small town with little relevance - became the centre of power in the state. In 1596 the king Sigismund III moved the royal court from Cracow to Warsaw, effectively making it the new capital.

In Europe: Gothenburg, Oslo, Stockholm, Glasgow, Berlin, Hamburg, the Rhein-Ruhr, Marseille, Copenhagen, arguably Venice and also Athens. In the Americas: New York City, Washington D.C., arguably San Francisco, Quebec City, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. In Asia: Tokyo, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Dubai, Bangkok, Vladivostok and arguably Kolkata/Calcutta and Dhaka. In Africa: Cairo, Alexandria and Cape Town. In Australia/Oceania: Melbourne, Wellington and Sydney.

Istanbul is located on the BOSPHORUS STRAIT. Dardanelles is the other one between Mediteranean șea and Marmara. Between Marmara and Black sea it is called BOSPHORUS STRAT.

Another key point about Lisbon is it's also effectively an easily defensible peninsula, the Lines of Torres Vedras were one heck of a defensive bastion, blocking off the only way to enter by land (from the north). Although, they're not technically part of the city being slightly outside.

@mikatu

Жыл бұрын

If Lisbon was so good in terms of defense how the hell the moors took it over, and then were expelled and then the French were expelled as well?? For a city so good in defense it wasn't very effective! The Lines of Torres were built exactly because the defense of the city was so poor.

@wilconran13

Жыл бұрын

@@mikatu Every city in Europe has fallen to someone or other at this point, thousands of years of history add up. Doesnt make them bad

@wilconran13

Жыл бұрын

@@mikatu some wildly famous defensible fortresses like Constantinople, Vienna and Belgrade have fallen a half dozen times, they're not suddenly meaningless cause they lost a siege

While I agree that Istanbul's strategical placement is really clever, one of its kind and desired by many, I can not say the same thing for its resources and its hilly topography. Like Romans and later the Ottomans needed to built tons of things to make the city work (especially water infrastructure) and the hilly nature of Istanbul didn't help them in this sense.

@MCArt25

Жыл бұрын

yea you couldn't really build a large city there without Roman Imperial levels of infrastructure, which is also why the city massively declined in population during the Middle Ages

Nice to see my homeland, Gibraltar, mentioned in this video.

You might wanna cut out the sponsor section from your vid. Just in case you're unaware ET is a scam

Your sponsor, Established Titles - just so you know, you don't own that plot. You can't buy or sell plots that small in Scotland. You also can't claim to be a real Lord or Lady, as in a peer of the realm. Anyone can call themselves Lord or Lady whether you buy a souvenir plot or not. It's just a bit of fun, less real even than naming a star, but some are misled into thinking it's a real thing.

Ideal location for city 1. Having river was important for constant supply of water and trade. 2. Easily defendable. With natural defence lines like Istanbul. Even Delhi was on higher ground with 100s of rain water storage ponds so was favorite location of many empires.

Bosphorus strait is the part between the sea of mamara and the black sea, while the Dardanelles is between the Mediterranean and mamara seas

We really need to build a canal from the dnister river to the bug, through lviv. To connect ukranian cities to all of the major cities of europe from riga to toulouse. All internal river networked. Only major cities disconected are in Italy/Iberia and the UK, but they all are easily reachable via the ocean.

3:15 the world*

@papazataklaattiranimam

Жыл бұрын

Only Eurasian city in the world😎

I need to comment on Amsterdam. Amsterdam became a large city not because of its location but because of politics and war in the 16th century. Antwerp is a city that is much better situated on the deep Scheldt river, as opposed to Amsterdam on the undeep and boggy Amstel river and surroundings which were very prone to flooding. After the fall of Antwerp in 1585 to Spain, Antwerp lost half of its population and most of the refugees fled to Amsterdam. The influx of refugees, who were often rich and powerful traders, made Amsterdam grow rapidly. As a result the port of Amsterdam also grew and the ships became larger too. But at some moment in history the ships became too large to reach Amsterdam. Therefore most ships anchored near the island of Texel to the north. In 1876, the North Sea Canal was constructed to make it possible for large ships to reach Amsterdam. But by then the port of Rotterdam already took over because it was much better situated and nowadays Rotterdam is by far the largest port in Europe. My point is: Amsterdam became important because of geopolitics, not because of geography.

My man said "subscribe If you want" that right there is a humble person, just for that I'm subscribing

Hello from Albania 🇦🇱

@arolemaprarath6615

Жыл бұрын

Salam

@rene2443

Жыл бұрын

@@arolemaprarath6615 salamu alaikum

@arolemaprarath6615

Жыл бұрын

@@rene2443 how's Islam there in Albania?

@rene2443

Жыл бұрын

@@arolemaprarath6615 Alright, basically every one believes in Allah but just don’t practice Islam. I myself I’m learning to become a Muslim and will say the shahadah

@General.Knowledge

Жыл бұрын

Hi!

Let me guess: Growth of a city depends on how good its location is.

@P-Mouse

Жыл бұрын

Gibraltar is tiny though...

@apveening

Жыл бұрын

@@P-Mouse Due to lack of room for expansion.

Belgrade and Nish in Serbia have excellent position

Another examples of strategically located cities outside Europe: America - NYC, New Orleans, Rio De Janeiro and Buenos Aires Asia - Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong/Guangzhou/Macao (basically all of the Pearl river delta), Shanghai Most of these cities, except for Singapore, are being located on the main river and near the sea, thus providing transport link between international and inland transport/trade Amsterdam is also similar in this regard

Hey you have a sponsor like that but didn't mention Glasgow's position, shocking! 😂 Seriously though Glasgow is a very well placed city too, it used to be great for ship building