ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the creation of the geographical information systems and the collection of data pertinent to rural politics. It provides a discussion on four areas: landscape and soil, settlement types and village location, distance and deep history. The chapter suggests that there is a correlation between the landscape where a census or polling place is located and voting pattern, which intensifies when one, correlates subtype. GIS gives us the tools to accurately map and analyze the impact of two of the most salient determinants of political interaction and behavior in Northwest Germany – the first being the nexus of landscape/landscape subtype/soil and the second crop regime/village type/social structure. Geest villages are exclusively Reihensiedlung or Streusiedlung, the later usually in close proximity to Moor areas. Different lived environments sustained varied village political cultures reflecting social and economic power relations within the Dorf.
