7° 
= 0 
Modern Business Geography 
Fre. 175. A view of Moscow. the leading commercial city of Russia. 
The distribution of cities in Europe. We must remember, in con- 
sidering the location of cities in Europe, that many of them were great 
centers of trade and industry thousands of years before there was a 
single mile of railway in the world. And we must remember also that 
until modern times there was no advance in road building beyond what 
the Romans had done; indeed, in most parts of Europe roads were 
poorer than when the Roman Empire was at its height. Up to the 
nineteenth century, then, cities would naturally tend to be located where 
there was easy communication by water, and we may expect to find 
that they grew up along main routes of trade by sea and river. When 
railroads were first built, they branched out to connect nearby towns 
with the great centers, which thus became railroad cities as well as 
ports. Later, industries began to be established in districts where 
coal and iron could be mined ; for the work could be done cheaper where 
these two basic materials were at hand, and the products could be 
shipped out by rail from districts lacking in waterways. 
Thus we find in Europe two kinds of large cities; (1) historic cities 
with good communication by water; and (2) new industrial cities de- 
pendent chiefly on railways.