Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Jan 31, 2024 23 tweets 9 min read Read on X
Why is Madrid the capital of Spain?

Madrid is quite unique:
• No river
• Very recent
• Tiny when it became a capital
So why? Image
These are the rivers of other big European cities & capitals: huge and calm. Why?

Because rivers allowed:
• Drinking
• Irrigation ➡️ food ➡️ population
• Trade: Transport is much cheaper than on roads, so much more trade and wealth Image
You can see the importance of rivers by the population density in France: it follows the course of rivers! You can tell the confluence of big rivers because they host the biggest population centers—natural markets to trade across the meeting rivers
Compare with Madrid's main river
Do you know its name? No, because it's puny
It's weak. An affront on capital rivers. A feeble stream

Low bridges. Full of sandbars. Why? No point in clearing them. The only thing that navigates the Manzanares is its inferiority complex Image
If Madrid had been blessed with a huge river, it would have been a huge city in ancient times. But no. In fact, it's a very recent city

Compare its founding with that of other capitals of countries occupied by the Romans. Most are 2k+ y old. Madrid? Barely 1k y old Image
When it was selected as capital, it wasn't the 1st, or the 2nd, or even the 3rd biggest city in Spain. It was the 10th! Barely over 10k people. A small town!

Back then, most capitals were the biggest, most powerful, best placed city. Why not in Spain? Image
Blame this guy
Philip II of Spain—who also gave name to the Philippines. Until the 1560s, Spain had an itinerant court. He wanted to fix it in a city. Where? Image
He had to deal with 2 realities. One was his empire: He needed a capital that was close enough to everything. That was Spain, which was also among the richest parts of his empire. Image
So he wanted a capital in Spain
This is Spain
What do you notice?

It's criss-crossed with mountain ranges. This has serious consequences Image
• Spain has a lot of rivers separated from each other by these mountain ranges. This means they're smaller than its Northern Europe equivalents
• Because they go through all these mountains, they aren't navigable*. They couldn't be used much for trade

So no big central city Image
It also means there are few plains. The few on the coast all developed big populations since Roman times. Barcelona, Valencia, Huelva, Cadiz... All predate the Roman!

This means Spain was (and is) made of islands of coastal population separated by mountains
Another thing to notice: It's surrounded by coasts, but each coast had its own pbms:
• Mediterranean: Deal with the colonies in Italy / Greece and fend off Muslim attacks
• Southwest: Deal with Spain's American colonies
• North: Deal with British attacks & Flemish colonies Image
Then there are the 2 central plateaux ("mesetas") and the Ebro Valley.

The king had to find a place that connected them all as best as possible.

I mentioned before the king had an itinerant court until then. This was the reason: Too many disconnected power centers Image
So what was the best connected place in the country at the time?

The red areas in the map below. Noticve they include Madrid and Toledo—which was one of the biggest and most powerful cities at the time.

So why not Toledo as a capital? Image
This is Toledo. Majestic, on a hill surrounded by the Tajo river
But:
• Streets are small, which is not ideal for travel with your court—and your personal guard
• You can’t grow the city much further
• You can’t determine its urbanism Image
And Philip II wanted to build. He had visited his Italian and Flemish possessions and wanted to bring its architecture. This is why he built the Escorial Palace

He wanted to do the same with his new capital Image
Madrid had another benefit: It had a power void.

Toledo and Valladolid had noble and religious leaders who could challenge the king

Not Madrid, which was smaller and had recently lost many nobles due to a failed revolt.

The king had confiscated their lands in Madrid Image
Madrid had other small benefits:
• Built on a defensible position
• Reliable water from the mountain range
• Air from the mountains (back then, they thought they were the cure against recurring epidemics)
• Forests for hunting

So Philip II chose Madrid in 1561
Once capital, the entire communications network had to be rewired to make Madrid more central. That was the point of the capital after all—allow easy access to all the territory.

Notice how so many Roman road paths have been conserved, but the central part is completely new
This happened over the centuries
More recently, we can see the roads plan of 1926, the highways plan of 1985, the current railroads... Most cross in Madrid

Image
Image
Image
The goal of Madrid's airport was to do the same connecting Spain with the world. It's now the 5th busiest airport in Europe
Image
Image
So Madrid is unique, because its geography had very little to offer—except it was central

But that centrality made it a capital
That centrality gave it infrastructure
That infrastructure made it the most connected place in Spain, hence the biggest market, hence the biggest city
If you want to know more, I have an upcoming article on Madrid. Sign up to the free newsletter to receive it.
And follow me for more threads like that! One every week/month
unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/subscribe

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Tomas Pueyo

Tomas Pueyo Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @tomaspueyo

Jun 3
Nuclear is the best source of energy across nearly all the factors that matter. It's the safest, cleanest, densest, most sustainable, geopolitically stable, predictable, dispatchable, and can be cheap.

1. SAFEST
It kills 1000x less than coal Image
Living close to a nuclear power plant for one year gives you less radiation than eating a banana (graph is logarithmic) Image
Image
2. CLEANEST
Accounting for all the lifecycle of all energies, it's the one that emits the least CO2 Image
Read 22 tweets
Apr 28
Over 80% of Canada's population lives in these 3 areas.
Why these 3?
Why so disconnected?
What are the consequences of that?
Here's why: 🧵 Image
ST LAWRENCE VALLEY & GREAT LAKES
About 55% of Canadians live here, on the riverbanks of the St Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. Why?

And as soon as you go a bit farther north of the St Lawrence, population disappears. Why? Image
1. History: This is where Europeans came from, and the place they settled first

Also, the St Lawrence river is naturally navigable until Montréal by seafaring ships—and up till the Great Lakes since the 1800s

That meant direct trade with Europe & the world➡️wealth Image
Read 18 tweets
Apr 25
Trump claims Canada should become the 51st US state
How much truth is there to this claim?
These maps tell us:
You probably know that 50% of Canadians live below this line

80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the border with the US! Image
You might also know that 70% of Canadians live in these 3 colored areas

These 3 areas are completely disconnected from each other Image
Read 25 tweets
Apr 13
10 surprising things I've learned about Korea as I research it:

1. You might have seen the map of day & night lights in North vs South Korea, but have you compared it with population density?
2. Seoul is just monstrous. Its metro area covers 12% of South Korea🇰🇷's surface but 50% of its population Image
3. North Korea is a dictatorship, but South Korea 🇰🇷 is no perfect democracy. All but ONE of🇰🇷's heads of state have had a troubled life... Image
Read 12 tweets
Apr 11
I think the craziness of North Korea is most apparent in its architecture. 7 examples:

1. The Science & Technology complex has the shape of an atom from above Image
Image
2. North Koreans like making their buildings' form represent their function. This is the entrance of the Zoo in the capital, Pyongyang: Image
3. The tallest building in the country is empty!
The Ryugyong Hotel was never finished. This Blade-Runner-style building has been empty for decades. The gov put LEDs on one facade, to use it... for propagandaImage
Image
Read 8 tweets
Feb 24
The stupidest German policy of the last decade: closing its nuclear power plants

These are Germany's sources of electricity vs what they could have been if they had kept nuclear open:

• This has destroyed Germany's industry
• The new gov can reverse this
🧵
Germany's economy is in tatters. It's one of the slowest-growing rich economies. It has been in recession in 2023 and 2024! Image
One of the main reasons is its industrial production: It's shrunk compared to similar countries Image
Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(