The development of the settlement structure and population in the frontier districts in the Ústí Region

Abstract

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the uniqueness of the territory studied and the singularity of the genesis of its settlement structure. The article attempts to outline the causes and consequences of the development within a broad spatial and functional context. The origin and development of most of the settlements that have been developing in the territory of the basin districts since the early Middle Ages, have been determined by nature, their location, but also by politics. Compared with other eras, the population of the frontier districts is distributed relatively evenly and all the particular settlements are of small extent. The critical changes took place during the periods of industrialization and subsequent urbanization. The process is shown in the synthetic part of the article (population median, concentration median etc.). Later, significant settlement centres developed in the basin area. They have kept growing since the half of the 20th century, even to the exclusion of the settlements that were demolished as a result of extensive opencast brown-coal mining.