Economy, Landscape and Society in La Castagniccia (Corsica) Since the Late Eighteenth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8963167 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter John Perry (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1967 |
| Issue | 41 |
| Pages | 209-209 |
| Publication date | 1967-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2307/621337 |
| OpenAlex | W2334799942 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
LA CASTAGNICCIA1 is that part of the mountainous interior of north-eastern Corsica formerly covered by sweet chestnut forests, and until the second half of the nineteenth century the political, social and commercial heart of the island. Now it is the most remote, least visited and most depopulated part of the island. One hundred and fifty years ago its name could have been given descriptively to much of interior north-eastern Corsica; while it is still used in this sense, extensive forests of sweet chestnut are now largely restricted to Piedicroce and La Porta cantons in the upper Fium'Alto valley.2 Corsica has been part of France since 1789, and from about this date has experienced economic and demographic decline, though political union was more probably an exacerbating element than a prime cause. Corsica's population declined from almost 300,000 in I890, the highest level recorded, to 150,000 in the I95os, through emigration to the mainland, to Algeria and to the more distant colonies. Parallel with demographic decline was agrarian and industrial decline, the consequence of a diminishing population, of French and Algerian economic competition, and not least, of Corsican indifference. The present situation is one of extreme dependence on mainland France, apparent in a very adverse and unbalanced pattern of trade, and massive emigration. It is in this context that La Castagniccia in general and the two cantons of Piedicroce and La Porta in particular have passed from pre-eminence and dominance to the farthest extremes of depopulation in the island. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the changing geography of these two cantons from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, as far as fragmentary records allow; these two cantons represent the extremes of decline and depopulation in Corsica, and at the same time the only areas where chestnut forests and the nineteenth-century landscape have substantially, although by no means without alteration, survived. It is hoped to demonstrate the connection between the rate and timing of depopulation, the differing economies of the two cantons, and past and present rural landscapes in Piedicroce and La Porta cantons. An abundance and variety of documentary material relating to late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Corsica is preserved in the Archives Departementales at Ajaccio, and elsewhere, providing the basis for this paper. The most important documents are a census of the island taken in 1792, and a detailed and annotated land-use map (the Plan Terrier) prepared in the same year; a valuable but somewhat incomplete occupational census of 1818; official census returns; and the Registres d'ftat Civil (see 'Sources' at the end of the paper). It is
Archaeology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Geography · Political science · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · French Urban and Social Studies · History · Horticultural and Viticultural Research
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 1978 - 2021 (44) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |