What borders in Europe are inevitable and which are not inevitable?

[Alligator]

In worlds with very early PODs, the year 1000 or earlier, what rivers, mountains, and such in Europe will always become borders, and which won't?

For example, the Carpathian Mountains were a very important border from the 1400s to 1914, but are totally disregarded in national borders now.

The mountains surrounding the Czech Republic weren't really important borders until the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, when the formed the border of the Austrian Empire. Now they're the entire border of the Czech Republic. Could the Bohemian and Moravian mountains be ignored like the Carpathians?

The Danube was a stable border for much of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, but is now too populated to be a border. The Rhine was a solid border in the Roman days, and during Napoleon's reign, but is now well within the borders of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Could these rivers have remained significant borders until the modern day?

What parts of Europe could have significantly different territorial divisions, and why?

 

[Just a Rube]

The Pyrenees are pretty much guaranteed to form a border more or less, although the exact line may vary (and indeed, historically did, at least to some extent). On the other hand, the borders within the Iberian peninsula can be redrawn in any number of ways with early PODs.

Rivers in general make nice borders on maps but lousy borders in practice, just because people tend to live along the banks on either side; you see this especially in the US, where plenty of colonial/territory borders were originally defined by rivers, but now have metropolitan areas split between two or more states due to development along the river, causing all sorts of problems. These problems obviously become even more notable when the different entities are countries instead of US states. While New York can't launch an invasion to conquer Newark from New Jersey, the same is not true of two countries in Europe. So as Europe fills up, rivers are less likely to be chosen as boundaries (except in cases where distant powers are carving up land they have no interest in; see e.g. the Germany-Poland border, which had little to do with the wishes of the Poles or Germans, and a ton to do with the map-drawing of the Allies during WWII).

 

[scholar]

The English Channel, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, and the Alps are probably the strongest argument for borders. One might bring up Scandinavian mountain ranges, but the Scandinavians themselves by far preferred sea travel and thus it was relatively easy to connect the entire place relatively easily. The Balkans make some form of boundary likely, but that has as much to do with the Slavic migrations as it does to do with geography.

 

[Sian]

While perhaps not exactly inevitable, Eider river, was the de-facto border between Denmark and HRE from 811 to 1864, even if from 1200s onwards Schleswig was made into a fiefdom, which drifted in and out of German influence, and while there were often disputes and skirmishes, they always defaulted back to Eider being the recognized border ... actually, that might be an interesting thing to ponder PODs about.

 

[Mikestone8]

In worlds with very early PODs, the year 1000 or earlier, what rivers, mountains, and such in Europe will always become borders, and which won't?

For example, the Carpathian Mountains were a very important border from the 1400s to 1914, but are totally disregarded in national borders now.

The mountains surrounding the Czech Republic weren't really important borders until the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, when the formed the border of the Austrian Empire. Now they're the entire border of the Czech Republic. Could the Bohemian and Moravian mountains be ignored like the Carpathians??

They almost were in 1866.

Iirc, King Wilhelm wished to annex Austrian Silesia, plus slices of German-speaking territory on the borders od Bohemia and Moravia. OTL, Bismarck talked him out of it, but that wasn't inevitable, and had he failed, the ceded territory would have still been Prussian in 1919. One can't be certain what happens then, but in general the Entente were pretty cautious about depriving Germany of ethnically German areas, so she might well keep it

 

[Gloss]

Nothing is inevitable, of course the mountain ranges would become the most likely borders though.

The Pyrenees are pretty much guaranteed to form a border more or less, although the exact line may vary (and indeed, historically did, at least to some extent). On the other hand, the borders within the Iberian peninsula can be redrawn in any number of ways with early PODs.

Rivers in general make nice borders on maps but lousy borders in practice, just because people tend to live along the banks on either side; you see this especially in the US, where plenty of colonial/territory borders were originally defined by rivers, but now have metropolitan areas split between two or more states due to development along the river, causing all sorts of problems. These problems obviously become even more notable when the different entities are countries instead of US states. While New York can't launch an invasion to conquer Newark from New Jersey, the same is not true of two countries in Europe. So as Europe fills up, rivers are less likely to be chosen as boundaries (except in cases where distant powers are carving up land they have no interest in; see e.g. the Germany-Poland border, which had little to do with the wishes of the Poles or Germans, and a ton to do with the map-drawing of the Allies during WWII).

If the cities in question are not very big it is not a big deal to have a 2 cities be separated by a river and a border.

 

[aegis03florin]

I believe that no borders are "inevitable". maybe only the Oceans.
Lets see:
-Seas: they might be or might not be borders, depending on which types of countries are around. The Roman Empire was a Mediterranean one, with Mediterranean Sea being its binder. Same situation can be for the Channel in a timeline when England and France are united under the same crown, the Baltic one in another different scenario.
- Mountains: as Carpathians and the Balkans are the perfect example, the mountains can be borders or can be the spine of a country. Depends on which people live on. The Pyrenees could be easily no frontier if an "Occitain" state is formed which cover Gascony + Languedoc + Aragon + Catalonia for example. or Navarre living on both sides. Or France keeping Catalonia. With the Alps: Austria keeping Lombardy. France conquering Italy... An ATL Italy conquering Provence. A surviving kingdom of Burgundy/Arles
- Deserts: they are the most probable, however if the people which inhabit them will create a state, then the Desert will be their heartland (ex: The Persian Empire, the Arabs, an ATL Bedouin Empire stretching over Sahara)
- Rivers: they are borders only between big empires which choose them as natural frontier for convenience. There are countless cases when the states formed alongside the big rivers (in Mesopotamia - Tigris and Euphrates, Egypt - Nile, China - Yellow River and Yangtze, North America - Mississippi, India - Ganges, Indus, Indochina - Mekong, etc.) therefore the rivers are their artery not their borders. In case of Hungary and Austria (and partially for Serbia and Romania), the Danube is not a border. Same for the Rhine. Of course they could become in different scenarios.

So... yah, only the Oceans are mostly "inevitable"

 

[ook]

The mountains surrounding the Czech Republic weren't really important borders until the decline of the Holy Roman Empire

Well, they were important for Czech tribes, duchy and kingdom.

 

[ToaKraka]

- Mountains: as Carpathians and the Balkans are the perfect example, the mountains can be borders or can be the spine of a country.

But is having a mountain range as "the spine of a country" actually a benefit for that country, especially before the advent of telegraphy? Wouldn't the difficulty of traversing the mountains impair the movement of traders, messengers, and troops? Or does the defensive benefit of being able to retreat into the mountains when invaded outweigh such concerns?

(I guess the same arguments can be made for deserts.)

 

[aegis03florin]

for a smaller country, having mountains in their center is very beneficial as it allow strategical retreat in front of bigger enemy. Also, most of these populations are montagnards and shepherds which practice the transhumance. So, they are used to cross easily the mountains as they are their homes.

 

[Falecius]

One of the generally stablest borders in Europe is the one between Latvia and Lithuania, which largely runs almost exactly where the line between Lithuania and the Livonian order, later Courland, was established in mid-thirteenth century. When Lithuania was incorporated by Russia, that was an administrative boundary. However, I gather that no natural barrier of note exists along much of its length, having fairly flat, forested terrain on both sides.

 

[Falecius]

Also in the Baltics, the Narva River has been fairly consistently, although intermittently, a border.
In the Carpathian Plains and the Balkans, rivers Drava, Sava, Drina and Danube have formed relatively stable borders at various times, and all still do now for part of their length, so they arguably show some tendency to "attract" borderlines.
This is also true, to a lesser extent, of the Rhine, the Prut, the Dnestr and the Northern Bug, at least for part of their course.
Nothing of this is inevitable, of course, but one notices a pattern.

 

[Neoteros]

But is having a mountain range as "the spine of a country" actually a benefit for that country, especially before the advent of telegraphy? Wouldn't the difficulty of traversing the mountains impair the movement of traders, messengers, and troops? Or does the defensive benefit of being able to retreat into the mountains when invaded outweigh such concerns?

(I guess the same arguments can be made for deserts.)

The Apennine mountain range can be considered, quite literally, the spine of Italy, and it's one of the many reasons why, after the fall of Rome, it took two millennia for another state to unify the peninsula; for most of the medieval and modern age, the most prosperous Italian states were, indeed, those who had a coastline (Florence/Tuscany, Genoa, Venice) or those who owned land on both sides of a major river (Milan). The Papal States are the exception that proves the rule: Romagna and Umbria, after they were incorporated into the Pope's domains, devoloped quite an autonomist and rebellious streak towards Rome, the capital city on the other side of the aforementioned mountain range.

 

[Falecius]

The Apennine mountain range can be considered, quite literally, the spine of Italy, and it's one of the many reasons why, after the fall of Rome, it took two millennia for another state to unify the peninsula; for most of the medieval and modern age, the most prosperous Italian states were, indeed, those who had a coastline (Florence/Tuscany, Genoa, Venice) or those who owned land on both sides of a major river (Milan). The Papal States are the exception that proves the rule: Romagna and Umbria, after they were incorporated into the Pope's domains, devoloped quite an autonomist and rebellious streak towards Rome, the capital city on the other side of the aforementioned mountain range.

Umbria is actually on the same side of the Appennine crest as Rome, and, as far as I can tell, had no major autonomist streak. Romagna and Papal Emilia however actually did, and they lay beyond the mountains. Also, the Kingdom of Naples straddled the chain as well.
Marche is the other region on the other side of the Appenines under Papal rule, and it was generally pretty content to stay under Papal yoke, once it had been firmly established, which took time and effort.

 

[Panhomo]

The caucasian mountains might be the best example. They currently form a border along most of their length, and have done so for much of history. This range makes such a good border for a couple reasons, for the empires which have used it; romans, persians, russians among others, it is conveniently defensible and simple. Smaller nation states, most prominently the georgians, have also used it because that entire region has enormous ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity, and the mountains divide these groups.

A different sort of situation exists with the Himalayas. They don't make for a 1 dimensional border, but do form a inevitable barrier. The chinese and others have drawn many borders through the range, but never in history that I'm aware of has one state controlled significant territory on either side of the Tibetan plateau.

 

[avernite]

Looking at historical evolution, the Pyrenees and Alps are the only somewhat stable borders in Europe (switching a mountain here and there from time to time), while all the rivers switch back and forth. The Rhine delta hasn't been a border since the Romans, but further upriver it has become a border (and the French had some obsession with it for a few centuries). The Po, Seine, Danube and Elbe have more usually been the hearts than the edges of countries, too. The Spanish-Portuguese border is actually quite stable, for reasons I've never really understood.

And even the Pyrenees (Spanish March, Roussillon) and Alps (HRE, Austrian Empire) haven't always been absolute borders, even if they still served to mark sub-entities.

 

[Falecius]

Looking at historical evolution, the Pyrenees and Alps are the only somewhat stable borders in Europe (switching a mountain here and there from time to time), while all the rivers switch back and forth. The Rhine delta hasn't been a border since the Romans, but further upriver it has become a border (and the French had some obsession with it for a few centuries). The Po, Seine, Danube and Elbe have more usually been the hearts than the edges of countries, too. The Spanish-Portuguese border is actually quite stable, for reasons I've never really understood.

And even the Pyrenees (Spanish March, Roussillon) and Alps (HRE, Austrian Empire) haven't always been absolute borders, even if they still served to mark sub-entities.

For much of the last millennium, at least parts of both sides of the Alps were notionally within the same polities. They were still felt like a border, though. Remarkably, the holdings of the House of Savoy consistently straddled the main mountain chain from the eleventh century until 1861 (they got important controlling the passes initially) and this happened initially exactly where the Alps are get the highest.
This is also sorta true of Tyrol until 1918 (and with a parenthesis during WWII).

 

[Alex Richards]

For much of the last millennium, at least parts of both sides of the Alps were notionally within the same polities. They were still felt like a border, though. Remarkably, the holdings of the House of Savoy consistently straddled the main mountain chain from the eleventh century until 1861 (they got important controlling the passes initially) and this happened initially exactly where the Alps are get the highest.
This is also sorta true of Tyrol until 1918 (and with a parenthesis during WWII).

Not to mention Switzerland- currently the Ticino projects south of the main Alpine range, while historically that also included Sondrio.

 

[Petike]

Nothing is truly inevitable. Natural borders that also make sense for country borders are only the most logical choices, but not the only existing ones.

For example, the Carpathian Mountains were a very important border from the 1400s to 1914, but are totally disregarded in national borders now.

Really ?!

I'd say Romania's and Moldova's borders, as well as Slovakia's borders with Ukraine, Poland, Czechia and even Hungary, buck what you insinuate.

 

[Gloss]

Nothing is truly inevitable. Natural borders that also make sense for country borders are only the most logical choices, but not the only existing ones.



Really ?!

I'd say Romania's and Moldova's borders, as well as Slovakia's borders with Ukraine, Poland, Czechia and even Hungary, buck what you insinuate.

Czechia and Moldavia borders are not along the Carpathian range.
Anyway administrative divisions of Ukraine and Romania still go around it.