Question

Explain how the Central Place (Christaller’s) theory brings out the theme of “cultural interaction” (one of the five themes of cultural geography).

Answer 1

This theory was originally published in 1933 by a German geographer Christaller who studied the settlement patterns in southern Germany. He attempted to model a design that would how and where central places in the urban hierarchy would be functionally and spatially distributed. In the regions that he examined, he noticed that towns of a size were roughly equidistant. By examining and defining the structure and the size of the hinterland he found it possible to model the pattern of settlement locations using geometric shapes. Christaller believed that, in order to adequately explain the spacing of urban places over the landscape, it was necessary to create a set of governing assumptions. To do this, he developed three two-dimensional geometric models of the economic landscape. He arranged these models relative to marketing, transport, and administrative principles. Since the sources of livelihood, activities conducted, transportation, marketing and transportation were similar, these regions were homogenous and later led to creating cultural subgroups and communities to be prevalent.