Countries most affected by technological development

[riggerrob]

OTL Which countries were most affected by technological development?

Take the example of Canada, which was a loosely aligned cluster of Maritime Provinces with Quebec and Upper Canada (now Ontario) farther up the Saint Lawrence River. All the "Big Money" was based in Halifax (Nova Scotia shipping industry). Confederation convinced a Pacific Coast colony to join on the promise of a railroad connecting them to the Atlantic Coast. "Big Money" promptly shifted to Montreal, which became the industrial hub and largest city for the next century. Montreal was a major port because it was the farthest inland that ocean-going ships could steam, until the Saint Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1956.
European immigrants followed the railroad to displace nomadic natives in the Prairie Provinces. Insignificant numbers of white folks lived on the Canadian Prairies before the railroad.

Please start your posts with "Original Time Line" or "Alternate Time Line" to ease reading.
We will also discuss OTL capital cities burned or bombed into rubble as an excuse to rebuild elsewhere.

 

[durante]

OTL Which countries were most affected by technological development?

Take the example of Canada, which was a loosely aligned cluster of Maritime Provinces with Quebec and Upper Canada (now Ontario) farther up the Saint Lawrence River. All the "Big Money" was based in Halifax (Nova Scotia shipping industry). Confederation convinced a Pacific Coast colony to join on the promise of a railroad connecting them to the Atlantic Coast. "Big Money" promptly shifted to Montreal, which became the industrial hub and largest city for the next century. Montreal was a major port because it was the farthest inland that ocean-going ships could steam, until the Saint Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1956.
European immigrants followed the railroad to displace nomadic natives in the Prairie Provinces. Insignificant numbers of white folks lived on the Canadian Prairies before the railroad.

Please start your posts with "Original Time Line" or "Alternate Time Line" to ease reading.
We will also discuss OTL capital cities burned or bombed into rubble as an excuse to rebuild elsewhere.

Montreal was the largest city in Canada and home of the "big money" from around 1650 until the mid 1970s. What are you talking about? The railways from Montreal didnt even connect to the maritimes...they went to Boston and Portland, Maine. The failure of the central Canadian big money to build a national railway to Halifax, for it to serve as the national port, was a chief reason for Nova Scotia and Joseph Howe's opposition to Confederation.

 

[Thanksforallthefish]

I really don't get what OP is asking. The last part in particular. What do bombed cities have to do with anything??

If we're asking about countries that took technological leaps, then Meiji Japan takes the prize, no doubt. From a semi-agrarian feudal society to an industrial and military great power in less than a century. As far as I know there is simply no historical comparison for it.

You could argue about the URSS, modern China, and maybe some places like Singapore and South Korea. But that's post-1900.

 

[Fulano]

Definitely a lot of the Oceania's people, especially the ones who lived on small, isolated islands. A lot of those people lived a tribal life closer to Stone Age civilizations than our modern times.
Just imagine being there one day, minding your own business, just to see some strange people from far away coming and building things you have never seen before, things that you would never have imagined not even in your wildest dreams.
There is a reason of why a lot of Cargo Cults were created there.