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I am surprised how small the population is considering it is part of a big country (by European standard) and it is relatively large, with great climate.
Island -- area (k sq km) population (k)
Sicily 25.7 - 5,100
Sardina 24 - 1,670
With fewer than 330k people, Corsica has half of the population of Crete, Greece, and less than a third of Cyprus. Even Spain's tiny Balearic islands have 1.1 million people.
The fact the island is mountainous probably is one reason, but are there other important reasons why Corsica's population is so low, particularly when France itself has a relatively large one?
Last edited by botticelli; 04-03-2017 at 11:53 AM..
The island is great, in terms of scenery, climate and so on, but it is lacking jobs. People used to say, Marseille alone has more Corsican people than the island itself.
The island is covered with mountains in the middle and is lacking trees or agricultural land around the coasts. It is a great place to live, but not to work.
There were 2 major population declines, one during the Second World War, with a loss of 80,000 inhabitants, ie 25% of the total population of the island and one between 1975 and 1982 with a loss of 50 000 inhabitants. For the latter probably because of the FLNC very active at that time (bombings, assassination etc.).
Last edited by Bordeaux33; 04-03-2017 at 02:42 PM..
Never been there but corsican immigrants are common in France, everyone knows a few at least, although more often than not they are thought of as people of italian ancestry.
I always thought it was because it was mostly mountainous, so in reality it had never been very populated, but I'm not entirely sure-
I am surprised how small the population is considering it is part of a big country (by European standard) and it is relatively large, with great climate.
Island -- area (k sq km) population (k)
Sicily 25.7 - 5,100
Sardina 24 - 1,670
With fewer than 330k people, Corsica has half of the population of Crete, Greece, and less than a third of Cyprus. Even Spain's tiny Balearic islands have 1.1 million people.
The fact the island is mountainous probably is one reason, but are there other important reasons why Corsica's population is so low, particularly when France itself has a relatively large one?
Mallorca is very mountainous too.
I was to tell you how can you consider Mallorca tiny but I just checked that Sicily is almost 26.000 km2 while Mallorca is just 3.600km2 so it is in reality.
lol Mallorca has a lot of population then, it's a mountainous island and it has 870.000 permanent residents! And it's funny because the Balearic Islands have a GDP per capita and PPP above the EU's average.
Mountains mountains moutains... Like Hautes-Alpes (25 inhabitants/km²) , where high mountains are, it's empty. It's too rigorous, bad for culture, steep, roads and cultures are damages by cold in winter and strong storms in summer. It's hard to bring electricity and internet and water and food in the middle of the island at 1500m. It makes it attractive for brave tourists mostly, but not workers, hell no. In Corsica, 120 peaks over 2000 meters (dixit IGN) take a lot of space and are a very hostile place for economic developpement.
Add to this the corsican terrorism/mafias in the past and I guess you have the ingredients.
Never been there but corsican immigrants are common in France, everyone knows a few at least, although more often than not they are thought of as people of italian ancestry.
When you get to know them, they make it sure you don't mistake them for anything else but Corsicans.
The population would be bigger if people could eat mountains.
As I said, mountains are a reason, but hardly the only reason. So there is no point in repeating that as if you are the smartest person in the room seeing the obvious thing nobody knows.
Switzerland is mostly mountainous too, but has a population density of 202, more than 5 times that of Corsica.
The micro country of Andorra is as mountainous as it can get, yet has a population density of 180, 4.5 times that of Corsica.
Vorarlberg, Austria is almost entirely mountainous, but still has a density of 150sq km, compared with 38 for Corsica.
Are those people all eating mountains?
Last edited by botticelli; 04-04-2017 at 01:18 PM..
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so it is in reality.
