A területi egyenlőtlenségek településszintű vizsgálata a tör-téneti Magyarország és utódállamai területén, 1330–2010 (I.)
We are attempting a longitudinal, histor-ical (1330–2010), fine scale (settlement-level) comparative analysis in this study of the territorial inequalities in the Kingdom of Hungary and its successor states. Data collection over the last 8 years in 5 time-horizons (1330, 1720, 1786, 1910, 2010) allows the study of almost 300 000 km2 through our data-bases containing 7 million entries. A study covering such a time span, based on settlement level data series covering an area of similar size is unknown in Europe. The first part of the paper presents the value and availability of historical sources, the problems of interpreting historical indicators (translating them to modern geographical terms), their selec-tion methods and discusses the limita-tions of integrating and comparing the different indicator sets of each time horizon. In addition, from a methodolog-ical point of view, the paper addresses the historical analysis of the concept of development, the challenges of compar-ing different time horizons through dif-ferent variable structures, the problems of map visualisation when projecting time horizons onto each other, the prob-lems of different and changing spatial entities, and finding the optimal resolu-tion using the grid solution. The five time-horizons also allow the testing of the Williamson hypothesis and its exten-sion in historical time.
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