ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the pre-modern urbanization of Europe between 1500 and 1800. It presents the data base on which the larger study of Europe's urban growth rests, identifies the broad contours of European urbanization, and concludes with several analytical and interpretive observations about the factors influencing European growth. If Josiah Cox Russell's survey of medieval urbanization can be relied upon, the situation in 1500 was very similar to the early fourteenth century. Then a somewhat larger European population supported about 125 cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants and four – the same four – cities of about 100,000. In order to determine the levels and rates of change of urbanization it is necessary to know the size of the total population of the countries and regions in which our cities are found. The phenomenon of urban concentration and related issues concerning the structure of the urban system can best be introduced with the help of rank-size distributions.
