What’s in a Name? Initial Geography and German Urban Development

Place names, or toponyms, provide insight into the initial geographical characteristics of settlements. We present a unique dataset of 3,705 German toponyms that includes the date of the first historical record mentioning the settlement and the date it was granted city rights. We show that the frequency of geographical toponyms as well as a novel proxy for local geographical advantage lead to a city-size distribution that adheres to Zipf’s law. In addition, we use the toponymical information to identify 168 geographical characteristics and empirically examine their importance for modern urban growth. Our results show that settlements with names referring to rivers, fords, churches, hills and historical clearing activities are associated with higher levels of 1910 population compared to places without named geographical characteristics. In addition, we show that the role of some of these characteristics in explaining urban development changes over time. We find for instance that proximity to castles matters more for initial settlement growth than trade capabilities, and highlight the evolving significance of shifting from defensive geography towards water-based trade over time.