Yep. The difference is that France developed a centralized Monarchy in the late Medieval and Early Modern period, while Italy remained a collection of city states into the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Germany is in this regard very similar to Italy, both for the population distribution and the late unification.

Meanwhile the UK has a similar population distribution to France (with London being the clear economic hegemon of the nation)

This is fascinating, thank you for sharing. You can see how the countries’ different histories affect them today.

I was going to say something about former Italian city states too, but you've said it much more eloquently

A country that was not invaded recently. A country that is actually a collision of 3 different states that even today try to keep their unique identities and show how different they are from the rest.

As a french person it’s awful if we are honest.

Most of the politic and economic activity happens on Paris meaning that’s where the jobs are too, many people have to go live in Paris to study or work making it an overcrowded and super expensive city.

Extreme centralization is honestly a terrible way to run a country.

I mean I see how it’s kind of efficient to have all the decision centers at the same place but it’s no fun for the average Joe who has to deal with it.

The title is blatantly MISLEADING. Its statement cannot be derived from any data shown in the map. The map shows "population density" and only highlights how densely Paris is populated compared to the rest of France. Even for this metric (population density), comparison to Italy is not possible without colorbars. AGAIN: the title is just wrong, the map allows no conclusion over the de-/centralized nature of France and Italy.

For other reasons this is happening in Italy too, but always in a decentralized way. Cities like Milan, Boulogne and Rome are becoming very attractive for students and workers, but also very expensive because of the lack of rentals room and houses.

The case of Milan is emblematic, in the mind of many people it became the go-to city if you want to have success (study in a high level university, find a good job with a good salary, have a good career path or run an innovative business). The price to rent an house or a room increases so much that many people live very outside the city center, in places not well connected with the public transportation.

That is a good point for Brazil(my country), the main political place is Brasilia, main economic hub São Paulo and export have several big ports, a big industrial hub in the north (Manaus) and several car manufacturers spread on the south and southwest, there are still some places that has a lot more jobs and education centers, mainly in São Paulo, but other state capitals also have strong education and economic, like Curitiba and Rio.

Found the Frenchman.

France has been talking about decentralization for decades now and some real efforts have been made to distribute power to the 'regions', but nothing has contributed more progress than COVID and associated remote work.

His anger is centralized on this thread.

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