The Imperiia Project: a spatial history of the Russian Empire

Deceptive distances

People rarely, if ever, travel as the crow flies. Countless obstacles, complications, and distractions make that quite impossible. Absolute distance is therefore only a rough measure of how humans, animals, and things move through space.

Inhabitants of the Russian Empire used road and river networks, often following prescribed itineraries from departure to destination. The actual distances they traveled were between 15% (for travel near St. Petersburg) and 40% (when crossing Siberia) longer than the straight line, or absolute, distances.

In other words, the Russian Empire was far bigger than it looks on the map.

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