The initial period of construction of the Spanish railway network is often criticized for its radial structure, centered on Madrid. In this article, the authors describe the role of the state during the initial stage of railway network construction and confirm that although the political will to construct a centralist network certainly influenced its morphology, other social and economic criteria were also influential. With regard to the political motives behind the radial network, the authors argue that part of this interest could have come in response to perceived needs to strengthen the presence of the Spanish state throughout its national territory and to promote a process of state-building. Finally, it must be stressed that the central hypothesis of our article is that the radial structure of the network was a natural consequence of the strategic geographical position of the country’s capital and of the distribution of economic activity within Spanish territory. The article proposes two methodological approaches for evaluating the extent to which the radial design of the network was justified, bearing in mind the locations of Spain’s most productive regions. The results of these two exercises suggest that the radial configuration with which the Spanish rail network was originally designed probably arose naturally as a result of the distribution of economic activity within the country and of the relative advantage that this bestowed on certain regions due to their geographic position.

中文翻译：

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西班牙早期（1830-67 年）铁路网络的辐射性：对其领土连贯性的评估

西班牙铁路网的建设初期经常因其以马德里为中心的放射状结构而受到批评。在本文中，作者描述了国家在铁路网络建设初期的作用，并确认虽然建设中央集权网络的政治意愿肯定会影响其形态，但其他社会和经济标准也有影响。关于放射状网络背后的政治动机，作者认为，这种兴趣的一部分可能是为了响应加强西班牙国家在其全国领土上的存在和促进国家建设进程的感知需求。最后，必须强调的是，我们文章的中心假设是，网络的径向结构是该国首都的战略地理位置和西班牙领土内经济活动分布的自然结果。本文提出了两种方法论方法来评估网络的径向设计在多大程度上是合理的，同时考虑到西班牙生产力最高的地区的位置。这两个练习的结果表明，西班牙铁路网最初设计的径向布局可能是由于该国经济活动的分布以及由于其地理条件而赋予某些地区相对优势的结果。位置。