Strange Maps

June 3, 2007

128 – The Jireček Line

Filed under: 20th Century Map, Balkans., Cultural Fault Lines, Europe — strangemaps @ 10:35 pm

bgiusca_jirecek_line.jpg

In 1911, Czech historian Konstantin Jireček drew a line across a map of the Balkan peninsula. The line, running east-west from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea, through northern Albania, along the Macedonian-Serbian border, and straight through the middle of Bulgaria, was an imaginary demarcation based on archaeological findings.
To the north, Latin was the dominant language. To the south, Greek dominated. This situation became more fluid after the collapse of the Western half of the Roman empire in the 5th century, eventually leading to the diminishing of Latin’s influence – although it did lead to the creation of Romanian, the only large romance language group of Eastern Europe.

Map found here on wikipedia.


7 Comments »

  1. Curious to find the line running parallel to a mountain range (in Bulgaria) rather than in it. Is that merely because the line is crudely drawn?

    Comment by Anton Sherwood — September 22, 2008 @ 5:55 pm

  2. thanks alot

    Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 2:48 am

  3. thanks for this map..
    good 
    luck

    Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 7:39 am

  4. merci

    Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 5:24 am

  5. teşekkür ederim

    Comment by yory — June 12, 2009 @ 9:36 pm

  6. Vielen Dank

    Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 4:16 am

  7. Muchas gracias

    Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 6:58 am

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