Long-term population development of the South Bohemian municipalities from 1869 to 2021 in the perspective of selected factors

Abstract

The article aims to capture and justify changes in the population development of larger South Bohemian municipalities from the beginning of the industrial era to the present. It evaluates the impact of three factors on the population development of municipalities – railways, territorial-administrative function and population size, but attention is also paid to other factors that shaped the population development of municipalities. The article uses census data from 1869 to 2021 for 104 municipalities with 2,000 or more inhabitants. In terms of the influence of the railway, the population increased the most in municipalities with railway junctions, especially until 1930. The higher territorial-administrative function of municipalities positively influenced their population growth throughout the whole monitored period. Municipalities with a larger number of inhabitants grew faster in population. But this did not apply to the last, postsocialist period, when the influence of other factors and processes was ap-plied, mainly suburbanisation.