INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Albania’s economic history is characterised by a fundamental contradiction: the country has valuable natural resources, fertile soil and enormous hydroelectric potential ...
more

The Principality of Andorra boasts a unique economic history. On account of its inaccessible location high in the Pyrenees, far from any trade routes with only a limited amount of farmland ...
more

Civilisation in Armenia is thousands of years old, but the high mountains and deep valleys of the Lesser Caucasus are a major obstacle to economic development.
more

On the one hand, Austria possessed all the prerequisites for industrialisation: plentiful natural resources, particularly iron ore and salt, and a long mining tradition.
more

The industrial history of Azerbaijan is largely a history of oil. Iron, copper and other ores also lie in the country's soil, but mining remained comparatively modest. Agriculture dominated ...
more

Belarus has few natural resources and in particular lacks coal and iron ore, the basic ingredients of the classic heavy industries. Only potash, used in making fertilisers and in glass manufacture ...
more

The industrial revolution on the European continent began in Belgium. Before that, the country had traditionally enjoyed a vibrant trading tradition for many years.
more

Although Bosnia-Herzegovina is a land of fertile fields and significant natural resources, its industrial development did not commence until very late. As in other countries ...
more

Dramatic political upheavals defined Bulgaria’s economic history and for many years impeted the path to industrialisation. Although a textile factory was founded in Sliven ...
more

For centuries, Croatia was squeezed between the expansionist Ottoman Empire in the southern Balkans, the Habsburg Empire in the north and the Kingdom of Hungary to the east.
more

Copper is Cyprus’s only major natural resource – but it was once so plentiful that it secured the island’s fame and wealth for millennia. Copper was the first metal that humans used ...
more

In many respects, the industrialisation of today’s Czech Republic, the historic Habsburg dominions of Bohemia and Moravia along with part of Silesia, followed a typical ...
more

Not many nations have succeeded in managing the transition to industrialisation as an agrarian society. Most of the European countries, which continued to depend on farming ...
more

After the Russian Czars assimilated Estonia into their empire in 1710, the first manufactories gradually emerged, such as the saw mill in Räpina, glass works at Põltsama ...
more

Finland’s rise as a prosperous industrial nation is due primarily to two very different factors: its extensive forests and its historically close relationship with Russia.
more

The course of industrialisation in France was so idiosyncratic that for a long time people wondered whether an industrial revolution had ever taken place in the country.
more

Bordering the peaks of the Caucasus to the north, the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east, Georgia has been a hub of exchange between the four corners of the sky ...
more

The first German textile factory was built in 1784 in Ratingen near Düsseldorf. It was called "Cromford" after its English model and was very much on its own in Germany.
more

Regardless of whether we compare it with western or eastern Europe, the history of industry in Greece remains a special case. The initial conditions were unfavourable ...
more

For a long time, Hungary’s economy was dominated by foreign powers, starting with Ottoman rule in the 16th century. Development thus followed a painful, inefficient up-and-down course.
more

For a long time, this volcanic island was one of Europe’s poorest countries, as only a small portion of the land is suitable for agricultural use and Iceland possesses virtually no natural ...
more

Ireland is today widely known as the “Emerald Isle”, but this successful branding hides a bitter history: until well into the 20th century, unprofitable agriculture predominated on the island.
more

... coming soon you can read an article on the industrial history of Kazahkstan here ...

The country has plains of fertile farmland and rich deposits of ores and lignite, but it has never managed to get sustainable development off the ground. The smallest state  ...
more

Latvia’s industrialisation was quite similar to Estonia’s: in the 19th century, both countries were under the rule of the Russian czars, and both lacked classical raw materials ...
more

For centuries, this tiny Alpine country, founded in 1719, was considered the poor house of Europe: confined in the Rhine valley between Austria and Switzerland ...
more

All three Baltic nations lack deposits of raw materials, but Lithuania remained an agricultural country the longest. Since 1795, when the Russian Czars annexed it into their empire ...
more

Who would have thought that this small country in the heart of Europe was once one of the largest iron producers in the world? Whereas the north of Luxemburg is mostly agricultural ...
more

Malta and its surrounding islands have very little in the way of natural resources. Only the limestone is suitable for making cement. Additionally, the forests were ...
more

The fertile black soil is the country's only significant resource; the few mineral resources worth mentioning are limestone and gypsum, which can be used for the production of ...
more

... coming soon you can read an article on the industrial history of the Principality of Monaco here ...

A tiny country dominated by craggy mountains and deep gorges, with next to no arable land, cut off from the sea for centuries: Montenegro had extremely poor prerequisites ...
more

The industrialisation of the Netherlands did not simultaneously result in smoking chimneystacks as in Britain, Belgium and Germany. In the mid 18th century Amsterdam was ...
more

North Macedonia attained independence very late compared to other European nations – and thus industrialisation was late and slow in coming as well.
more

Well into the 19th century Norway was still a pre-industrial country with a poorly-developed infrastructure and transportation system. 90 per cent of the population lived as self-sufficient ...
more

Industrialisation within the territory of today’s Poland was extremely disparate as repeated partitioning of this nation occurred during the decisive 150 years in which ...
more

For a long time, Portugal was isolated within Europe, due both to its location on the western fringe of the continent and to policies that focused more on exploiting resource-rich colonies ...
more

Romania’s economic history was shaped by the tensions between its extremely passionate striving toward self-sufficiency and the dominance of foreign powers.
more

Although the European part of the Russian Empire was rich in raw materials its industrialisation started late, due mainly to the lack of labour and capital caused by centuries ...
more

When Serbia gained independence in 1878 after over 400 years of Ottoman rule, the chances of industrialisation were poor. Investment capital was unavailable, as farmers ...
more

Though Slovakia has a long mining tradition, it remained an agricultural nation until well into the 20th century. The late Middle Ages was the golden age of Slovakian mining.
more

Slovenia was considered a part of the agricultural periphery of the Habsburg Empire for centuries. However, wherever economic potential became apparent between ...
more

Industrialisation in Spain varied geographically. Three regions were the pioneers: Basque Country, Asturias and Catalonia. In the Basque Country, the iron industry was concentrated.
more

Sweden’s long road to becoming an industrial nation followed a common path, in that the process began with agricultural surpluses and a consequent population growth.
more

On the face of it, the prerequisites were lacking: Switzerland is almost entirely devoid of the classical raw materials of coal and iron, and the mountainous terrain makes agriculture ...
more

By the beginning of the 20th century, the once-glorious Ottoman Empire had deteriorated for all practical purposes into an agricultural colony of the West. Due to its crushing foreign debt ...
more

The individual regions of the Ukraine differed greatly in their development because natural resources are unevenly distributed and because for centuries the territory ...
more

The Industrial Revolution, which brought so many chimney stacks and soot-ridden workers' housing settlements to Europe, began on the fields of British farmers.
more

... coming soon you can read an article on the industrial history of Vatican City here ...