Urban population in Germany, 1500 - 1850

Ulrich Pfister

No 9020, CQE Working Papers from Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster

Abstract: In situations where few data are available to document economic activity, the size of the urban population is a valuable indicator for economic development and the spatial pattern of an economy. This study improves the basis for investigations into the quantitative urban history of Germany by constructing a novel database of the population size of 412 cities that had at least 5000 inhabitants between 1500 and 1850. Compared with earlier databases it uses a considerably larger body of sources, and it improves the resolution of data by interpolating and extrapolating annual series. The resulting series of total urban population is consistent with recent work on aggregate demographic trends in Germany. The trajectory of the urbanization rate shows that Germany began its transition from stagnation to growth around 1800, several decades before the onset of industrialization. Regional urbanization rates converged (rather than diverged) in 1815/19–1858, that is, during the transition to the first stage of industrialization. Discussion of individual regional histories suggests state formation, (proto-)industrialization and regional population density as possibly relevant determinants of urban growth in the area and time period studied.

Keywords: Urban growth; economic development; economic demography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N13 N33 N93 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 64 pages
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cqe:wpaper:9020

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