Link Relations of Southwestern Asia 251 



^». 



Relief Sketch Map of Eurasia — lyambert's Projection 



Courtesy of Messrs Butler and Sheldon 



though one cannot sa}' certainly, not 

 to have yet reached its maximum of 

 activity, but in an area like that crowd- 

 ed volcanic region in Central America, 

 to be still in what one might call the 

 torrent stage of a river. The great east- 

 and-west line which' divides Asia has 

 to the north great plains, but recently 

 (speaking in a geologic sense) sub- 

 merged, and to the south groups of river 

 valleys, which, in the case of the Indo- 

 Asian, the Indian, and the Euphrates 

 Valley, abut on more southern regions 

 of an older type and now wholly or par- 

 tially submerged. Asia has, in short, 

 an abrupt scarp to the south, a sloping 

 desert plain to the north, and the great- 

 est of earth's mountains between. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF CITIES 



This area presents itself to us as di- 

 vided into countries settled and inhab- 

 ited. Broad tracts there are to the north 

 almost without population, but the un- 



conscious impression which we have in 

 regard to Asia is, as with most parts of 

 the earth's surface where men exist, of 

 a uniform film of population spread over 

 the entire region, not greatly differen- 

 tiated. But the test of organized popu- 

 lation is the existence of cities. The 

 presence or absence of cities measures 

 not only the density of population, but 

 the extent to which population is or- 

 ganized in society. From a map of this 

 region^ indicating cities of over 50,000 

 population, the smaller dots indicating 

 cities of this size and the largest going up 

 to cities of 1,000,000 population, it is 

 apparent that the city population of the 

 Eurasian area is centered in three dis- 

 tinct groups. These lie in the two river 

 systems of China, in north India, prin- 

 cipally on the Ganges, and in the western 

 \ 

 ^ ' ' Villes sur la Surface du Globe, ' ' Almanach 

 Hachette, 1900, p. 293. This map has, as most 

 will see, another origin, but I have referred to 

 the form in which I found it most suitable for 

 reproduction. 



