communications. The massifs enclose tectonic basins still or formerly occupied by lakes, and connected with the Morava and Vardar valleys or with the Ovtshe Polye and the Strumitsa. North of Nish, the Shumadya is the southern part of the neogene Pannonic lake. It slopes gradually by seven terraces from 960 metres to 120 metres towards the Danube and the Sava. On a lacustrine soil, the monotony of the crops is broken only by forested hills former islands in the Pannonic lake and remnants of an ancient extensive forest. Similar morphological features are found E. of the Carpathic Rtany (1,566 metres) in the Timok basin, previously occupied by a Pliocene lake. The climate is of modified Central European type, with abundant rain; and a long mild autumn, and a soil of loess and humus make Shumadya the best maize district in the peninsula.
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FIG. 2.
Pigs are raised in the decreasing forest area. White villages, crowded by a purely rural population reputed for good sense, humour, democratic spirit and strong national traditions, are scattered among green plum orchards. In close touch with Central European civilization, Shumadya early cast off the yoke of distant Con- stantinople and became the Piedmont of the Serbian renascence. South of Nish the country is more isolated: Rashka is composed of tectonic basins (Nish, Kosovo, and Skoplye) encompassed by abrupt slopes of compact masses of schists and limestone. The higher summits show ancient glacial features. Towards the south, the relief is more and more complex. In Macedonia, crystalline schists and granites of the Rhodope system prevail on the east, sand- stones, serpentines and limestones of the Pindus on the west. Among the latter are higher summits (Perister, Kajmakcalan, 2,525 metres) and tectonic basins (Presba, 900 metres). The climate is continental except in the south-east where several Aegean gulfs penetrate the interior along the Struma and Vartlar, but winters last longer and are colder than in Shumadya. The lake-floored basins are occupied by orchards or wheat and flax, but forests and summer pastures of the hills are a region of " transhumance," especially in the west, equidistant from the Adriatic and the Aegean. Fields of poppies and rice and vineyards occupy large spaces in south-eastern Mace- donia. The inhabitants live mostly in the basins but also on the terraces. In Rashka and Macedonia towns are more of the Turkish type with their aggregations of 'wooden shops on narrow, dirty streets grouped round a central covered bazaar. In Shumadya, more open to European influence, the town streets converge towards a central piazza or market, and the villages extend along valleys and roads, contrasting with those of the Chiftlik type of the Vardar country. There isolation of small natural units helped the par- ticularism and submission to Turks which are still noticeable amongst the people, though disappearing through the influence of returned emigrants.
The Pindo-Dinaric region differs from that of the Morava-Vardar in its lack of penetration and union and by a well-defined morphol- ogy. From the Lyublyana basin to the Gulf of Arta, it is delimited on the E. by depressions, among which are the upper valleys of the Vrbas, Neretva and Drin. The beds are folded and dislocated N.W.-S.E., so that from W. to E. the littoral area (primorye) is suc- ceeded by a barren karstic plateau (zagora) and then by high mountain ranges (pianino) parallel to the coast, which is a coast of submergence of which the higher parts form islands. The strike of the folds restricts transverse relations, except S. of Scutari where, in the Pindus ranges, it becomes west-east. Crests of the underlying carboniferous rocks often appear through the folded and dislocated surface, but the ragged dolomitic peaks are higher. Depressions and gentle slopes prevail in the Bosnian schists of the east, steps of
cretaceous limestones sloping from 2,000 metres to 800 metres in the plateau of the west. These steps have been transformed into barren karst, with subterranean rivers, high temperatures and abundant rains, as far as a new line of ranges along the coast. Important mineral deposits, especially iron and copper, are found in the palaeozoic and tertiary rocks.
The karstic morphology is less important where the schists, sandstones and serpentine predominate in the Pindus regions. Instead of being indented and island-dotted, as in Dalmatia, the Albanian coast is straight and deltaic. The Mediterranean type of climate extends farther than in the Dinaric regions. Winters last long and snowfalls are abundant on the planinas, autumn is early in the zagora, and the barometric gradient in the " bora," a wind blow- ing from the mountains towards the Adriatic cyclones, is extremely steep. The rainfall reaches 4,640 mm. at Tserkvitse in the Gulf of Cattaro. The vegetation is varied : the slopes of the planinas up to 1,700 metres are occupied by forests, farther up by Alpine villages and fields of summer crops, then by pastures. Intensive agriculture is possible only on the " terra rossa " of the depressions in the karst. Mediterranean cultivation prevails on the coast. The alluvial Pindus valleys are cultivable areas and the Albanian slopes are covered with pasture and olives up to Elbassan on the east. The population is scattered except on the edge of the polye, where it con- centrates in order to avoid building on the limited " terra rossa " area. The Alpine type of house prevails on the planinas from Carniola to the districts occupied by the Vasoyevitschi tribe in the upper Lim valley, the Chifllik in southern Albania, the Mediter- ranean on the Primarye and some parts of Zagora. The towns in Albania are of mixed Turkish and Mediterranean type (Durazzo, Valona). On the other hand, Spalato, Zara and Ragusa, old harbours along small bays and narrow headlands, are an element of maritime life which helped Slav and Latin influences to combine in the early cities, producing a high civilization. On the planinas a pastoral life favoured a sturdy independence. The same characteristics are noticeable in the Pindus region which, isolated from the sea by marshes and lagoons, is still the most extensive domain of tribal life. Thus, unity of life, as well as morphologic features, is a determinant factor of the natural region.
Area and Population. The political divisions do not exactly correspond with natural units described above :
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Political Division (1921)
Area in sq. km. (1921)
Pop. (1910 census)
Pop. per sq. km.
Yugoslavia (S. of the Danube
and Sava) ....
202,051
8,842,667
43
Dobrudja (Rumania) .
23.304
360,000
15
Bulgaria
102,740
4,700,000
38
Turkey
10,000
1,400,000
H
W.Thrace
12,000
300,000
25
Greece
142,000
5,850,000
37
Albania . ...
26,000
780,000
3
State of Fiume ....
21
49,806
2,37i
Balkanic Italy (country of
Gorizia E. of the Isonzo, W.
Carniola, Istria, Trieste and
Zara)
7,969
739.952
92
Totals
526,085
23 022,425
42
Civilizations and Metanastasic Movements (see fig. 3). Various civilizations Byzantine, Turkish, Occidental and Patriarchal were adapted in their distributions to geographical, conditions, each of them leaving a deeper impress in a definite area. Byzan- tine influence impressed material life and moral ideals throughout the Middle Ages, and it was carried by the Greeks and Aramuni along the longitudinal depressions under Turkish rule up to the Danube and the Sava, but could not be maintained in the areas successively cleared by the Turks. It does not now appear farther north than the Balkans and the Shar Planina. It is still noticeable in the city life, relying on strict trade unions, in dogmatic quarrels, and in the struggle to make money at all costs. Turkish and Oriental influences first came across the straits and the island-dotted Aegean. The Greeks and Turks brought wheat, fruit trees, flowers, and methods of irrigation from Asia Minor, the last of these especially into Bulgaria. The Islamized Serbs extended the area of Turkish habits and mental- ity far north and west into Bosnia. Turkish and Oriental in- fluences are still manifested in special care for weapons and harness, in lazy habits, and in a strange mixture of goodness with brutal passions. Under submission for so long, the Christians still maintain the raya mind and conceal their feelings. In Turkish territory and Thessaly the economic system of tenure called
