Walter Christaller’s Scientific Excursion to Nordic Countries in Summer, 1934

Abstract

Walter Christaller embarked on a scientific excursion to four North European countries (Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark) from July 25 to September 10, 1934, using an overseas research dispatch grant provided by the Albrecht Penck Foundation (Albrecht-Penck-Stiftung). The manuscript of the excursion report submitted to the foundation after his return is now deposited at the Leibniz Institute of Regional Geography (Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde) in Germany. In the wake of that scientific excursion, Christaller, who was originally a socialist, began a new academic life at the University of Berlin under scholars whose principles were different from his, and he eventually became involved in the national land-planning project of Nazi Germany. Therefore 1934 was a major watershed in Christaller’s academic life. The excursion report provides useful information to understand the subsequent development of Christaller’s work. This paper seeks to clarify what Christaller learned from the Nordic scientific excursion and its relevance to his subsequent studies by examining the manuscript of that report, with a primary focus on cities and settlements.

Christaller visited 49 North European cities and settlements (or their vicinities), as shown in Figure 1. Due to the nature of the survey, the main focus was landscape observation. Christaller reported that in North European cities, there were many wooden buildings that utilized the abundant forest resources, and the streets were dominantly (long) grid-like cityscapes. In terms of onsite confirmation, Christaller observed the expansion of suburban residential areas around large Nordic cities, which had also become predominant in Germany.

The difference between this report and “Central Places in Southern Germany” (1933) is that Christaller extended the research scope not only to urban but also to rural settlements. His perception that dispersed settlements mainly consisting of isolated farmsteads were predominant in the rural areas of North Europe differed from Otto Schlüter’s well-known morphogenetic study of settlements. According to Schlüter (1911), at least the southern part of the Nordic countries was classified as part of the Gewanndorf, or clustered settlement region.

The important point is that by extending his research interest to the theme of rural settlements through the visit to the Nordic countries, Christaller was able to develop a unique morphological classification of rural settlements in the first half of his study (1937), which presupposed the discussion on the reorganization of German rural municipalities in the second half of the study. Furthermore, in relation to the origins of rural municipalities, Christaller (1937) noted that rural settlements in the Nordic countries were socially and spatially structured around churches and that parishes had once served as municipal entities.

The report did not mention any relationship with central place theory. Nevertheless, a series of fragmentary descriptions in the report suggest that Christaller was aware of the existence of an urban network that connected Germany, Denmark, southern Sweden, and southern Finland. Among those descriptions, Christaller’s world geography text published in 1961 followed the perspective that focused on the regular distribution of small cities when discussing Danish cities from a bird’s-eye view and on the functional differentiation of cities in Sweden.

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