Editing History of the Alps (section)

=== Population  ===
[[File:Lanersbach.jpg|thumb|A typical alpine village in the [[Tuxertal]] valley of [[Tyrol (federal state)|Tyrol]], Austria]]

For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region.  Within the area delimited by the [[Alpine Convention]], there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.<ref>Jon Mathieu: History of the Alps 1500–1900. Environment, Development, and Society, Morgantown 2009, p. 34-35 (here converted to the area of the Alpine Convention); for the last figure see Alpine Convention: Report on the State of the Alps, Innsbruck 2007, p. 36 (national statistics from 1999 to 2005).</ref>

Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "[[Voyages dans les Alpes]]" (1779–1796) by [[Horace-Bénédict de Saussure]]. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of [[Mont Blanc]] at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]’s best-selling romantic novel "[[Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise]]" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the [[colonialism|colonial expansion]] many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.<ref>Bernard Debarbieux: La nomination au service de la territorialisation. Réflexions sur l'usage des terme ‚alpe’ et ‚montagne’, in: Le Monde alpin et rhodanien 25 (1997), pp. 227–241.</ref>

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular [[Population growth rate|growth rate]], which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the [[Human migration|migratory fluxes]] became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by [[depopulation]].<ref>Luigi Lorenzetti, Raul Merzario, Il fuoco acceso. Famiglie e migrazioni alpine nell’Italia dell’età moderna, Rome 2005.</ref> This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.<ref>Werner Bätzing: Die Alpen. Entstehung und Gefährdung einer europäischen Kulturlandschaft, München 1991.</ref>