The laws of the spatial growth of states. A contribution to a scientific political geography

Abstract

Populations are in continuous internal motion, which projects itself towards the periphery. The expansion of different activities, such as trade and religion, precedes the spatial growth of the state. The size of the state is one of the measures of its civilizational level: the higher the latter is, the larger the state's surface is. At the same time the relationship of the population to the land becomes continuously closer. The growth of the state proceeds by the annexation of smaller members into the aggregate, and manifests itself as a peripheral phenomenon in pushing outward the frontier which must be crossed by the carriers of growth. However, growth does not happen in any direction, but towards the most valuable lands. Natural increase renews a simple political body and continuously reproduces it, but does not of itself reproduce any other form. Weaker states attempt to equal the more powerful, whence the struggle for spatial integration and levelling arises.