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Literature review – ecumene delineation
Literature review – reference to ecumene

From its Greek derivative, one can certainly infer that the ecumene concept is not new. The word oikoumene traditionally refers to the inhabited portion of the world known to the ancient Greeks. Figure 2.1 shows a reconstructed map of the oikoumene from Herodotus. Herodotus (ca. 484 B.C. – ca. 425 B.C.), a renowned Greek historian, is regarded as the 'Father of History'. However, others also note that he might be equally well called the 'Father of Geography', since his extensive travels yielded a considerable amount of written information about the geography of the places he visited (Jacobs 1899; Skocz 2004; Encarta® Online Encyclopedia n.d.).

The more recent geographic literature reveals that the ecumene concept is generally examined in two basic ways: authors who delineate an ecumene and authors who merely refer to the concept in the context of their research.

Literature review – ecumene delineation

The settlement patterns of Canada that emerged have been moulded by the interaction of physical, cultural, historical and economic factors. To examine the characteristics of settlement patterns, geographers often describe and delineate the ecumene. The summary presented below reviews the delineation of three national ecumenes, one provincial ecumene and two ecumenes of Arctic Canada.

In an early geographic study, Jefferson (1934) explores ways of delineating Canada's ecumene. He suggests using 2 or 2.5 people per square mile (about 0.8 or 1 person per square kilometre) as well as population nuclei of 100 people (Jefferson 1934, p. 148). Figure 2.2 shows Canada's ecumene proposed by Jefferson.

Based on 1931 data for nine provinces and two territories, Jefferson includes a table showing that Canada's land area is 3,542,000 square miles (9,173,738 square kilometres) and the Canadian ecumene is 326,000 square miles (844,336 square kilometres). He states that:

He also notes that 99.87% of Canadians live in the most southern parts of the nine provinces, and that none of Canada's large cities is more than 65 miles (105 kilometres) from the United States (Jefferson 1934, p. 150). As well, he reports that Canada's road network coincides very well with the ecumene (Jefferson 1934, pp. 156 to 157).

Gajda's (1960) seminal study establishes the types of Canadian ecumene on the basis of the form and function of settlement. As Gajda puts it:

Similar to Jefferson (1934), Gajda (1960) also provides a table showing that Canada's land area is 3,549,960 square miles (9,194,354 square kilometres) and the Canadian ecumene is 438,900 square miles (1,136,746 square kilometres) for ten provinces and two territories. In order to map the occupied and unoccupied land across Canada, the unit areas used by Gajda (1960) include municipalities¹, and where necessary, enumeration areas². To obtain a detailed distribution of population he uses large-scale topographic maps, air photographs, published documents, as well as information obtained by interviewing people familiar with the areas in question.

Gajda's map shows two basic ecumene types: the core, contiguous ecumene spanning the area of farmland and densely population zones in the south; and a strip-like pattern of ecumene following railways, roads and coastlines, as well as patches or enclaves of ecumene generally associated with mining (Figure 2.3).

However, Gajda (1960) is reluctant to restrict the application of Canada's ecumene to the narrow, populous southern fringe. The map also depicts hunting and trapping grounds in the northern portions of three provinces (Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario) and in the territories. He argues that Canada's north:

Gajda (1960) further divides Canada into four different zones based on population distribution, settlement types and resource extraction. Zone I is densely populated and has utilized agricultural land. Zone II is semi-populated with the population pattern and land utilization following railways, roads and coastlines in a strip-like fashion or in small patches. Zone III is sparsely populated with the utilized land being confined to areas occupied by groups of people whose livelihood depends on mining, lumbering, hunting, trapping, fishing or fur trading. Zone IV is virtually empty except for a few settlements and a small number of meteorological stations or police posts.

Hamelin (1972) also examines the ecumene on the basis of the form and function of settlement. He first describes four functional ecumene types: habitation ecumene – areas that consist of urban land use and urban services; exploitation ecumene – areas often adjacent to the habitation ecumene such as agricultural land and resource extraction; linking ecumene – such as roads, railways, pipelines, power and telephone lines that enable scattered habitation and exploitation ecumenes to develop; and sub-ecumene – small, 'unattractive' areas which interrupt the continuity of southern Canada, as well as immense empty areas in the interior of the Arctic and subarctic.

He further states that in certain cases there is a broad correlation between the functional types of ecumene and their form, such as elongated settlement forms along railways, and dispersed oasis type forms associated with resource extraction. Hamelin (1972) notes that the ecumene takes four general forms: bloc form – corresponds to an older type of settlement in which the physical environment enables expansion; linear form – occurs in each of the chief functional types of ecumene, and extends along railways, highways, valleys or shorelines; point form – villages and small towns that are either isolated, linked and temporary points throughout two-thirds of northern Canada; and dispersed form – refers to regions where people are scattered over a few dozen square miles.

Hamelin's zonal arrangement of the Canadian ecumene (Figure 2.4) is a modification of Gajda's ecumene. The categories in the legend represent a combination of the functional types of ecumene and their form.

Kariel (1970) examines Alberta's settlement pattern by nearest neighbour analysis using the total area of the province and the settled area, or ecumene. Alberta's ecumene is denoted as 'settled area' on his map (Figure 2.5). Kariel notes that the settled area conforms closely to Gadja's map and corresponds with the agricultural area. He also reviews the parts of Alberta not included in the settled area, such as most of the Rocky Mountains and their foothills, the Badlands and extremely arid areas to the east, all of the Cypress Hills near the southeast corner, and so on. In keeping with the definition used in the Canadian census, he defines urban places as settlements with 1,000 persons or more (Kariel 1970, p. 124).

The delineation of the ecumene is restricted to the Canadian Arctic by two authors. In his discussion of Climate and the Thule Ecumene, Jacobs (1979) examines the extent of Thule³ occupation in relation to environmental factors to determine the environmental limits on human occupation of the region. He notes that the term ecumene in its most restricted sense means the entire domain of a particular people (Jacobs 1979, p. 529). He presents a simplified version of Milton Freeman's previously published map of the Thule ecumene (Figure 2.6).

Rundstrom (1992) suggests that the Arctic should be viewed in the context of its aboriginal population:

Northern Labrador, northern Quebec and two-thirds of the Northwest Territories⁴ comprise the Inuit ecumene of Arctic Canada (Figure 2.7). The map presents an unusual view, in that it looks south from above the North Pole, and the scale is larger in the north and then progressively decreases toward the south.

Literature review – reference to ecumene

As previously mentioned, some authors merely refer to the ecumene concept in the context of their research. Several papers, which are presented in chronological order, are summarized below to demonstrate that this notion is quite popular and not as esoteric as one might think.

In his treatise of population geography, Trewartha (1953) argues that population distribution involves dividing the land portions of the earth into permanently inhabited (ecumene) and uninhabited or temporarily inhabited (non-ecumene) parts. He further describes that the non-ecumene is composed of extensive contiguous areas as well as smaller non-contiguous holes imbedded within the ecumene (Trewartha 1953, p. 92).

Enequist (1960) discusses the concept of oecumene and non-oecumene in the introduction of his study on the advance and retreat of rural settlement in northwestern Sweden. He notes that the analysis at the margin of rural settlement "…often calls for the antithesis Oecumene/Non-Oecumene" (Enequist 1960, p. 211).

In his analysis of transportation and politics in Canada, Wolfe (1962) discusses the major modes of transportation (waterways, railroads, highways and airways) and how they are affected by Canadian/U.S. politics and the international border. Near the end of his paper, he discusses the Canadian ecumene. Wolfe agrees with Jefferson's (1934) observation that the ecumene is a narrow fringe stretching along the U.S. border (with a northward narrow extension on the prairies), and concurs with Gajda's assertion that it should not be restricted to the narrow, populous southern fringe (Wolfe 1962, p. 187). Even though there is some economic development in Canada's north, he laments that:

In an unusual study, Carter (1969) attempts to determine the extent of the medieval Serbian ecumene and the centrality of successive capital cities. He applies three main methods: connectivity analysis (a branch of graph theory); determining eigenvalues; and measuring accessibility whereby actual distance between settlements is measured and tested against the accessibility of the transportation network as a whole (Carter 1969, p. 39).

Burghardt (1972) calculates income density (income per square mile) for every county in the conterminous United States, noting that census income data is the most satisfactory available statistic to indicate an aggregation of all forms of economic productivity (Burghardt 1972, p. 455). He further states that the two areas of counties with income density values higher than one-tenth of the mean form the nation's ecumene.  His resulting income density map shows that the conterminous United States is composed of a "large eastern ecumene" comprising 52% of the area, a "narrow western ecumene" with 6% of the area and an "intervening non-ecumene" with 42% of the area (Burghardt 1972, p. 459).

Storrie and Jackson (1972) examine Canada's environments, notably the physical landscape and three basic human landscapes that they identify as "…the cities, the settled rural areas, and the wildscape of the North" (Storrie and Jackson 1972, p. 309). In the introduction, they briefly refer to the ecumene concept—zones of permanently-established living areas joined by integrated transportation systems—to emphasize that 35% of the Canadian population lives on less than a hundredth of the total area and that most Canadians live within 100 miles of the United States border at the time of the 1966 Census (Storrie and Jackson 1972, p. 309, 312). They also refer to the rural ecumene of Canada, which they believe offers a wide range of issues to geographers. For example, they address the concern of minimum viable size. They pose the question of the criteria for determining the size of community so that it can provide a sufficient range of services and opportunities, thus permitting it to remain self-sustaining (Storrie and Jackson 1972, p. 322).

In the analysis of Canadian resource towns, McCann (1980) examines the location and internal structure of these settlements. He not only discusses their location in relation to Canada's physical landscape (such as the Canadian Shield and Great Plains), but also in relation to the ecumene. McCann reviews Gajda's four ecumene zones and includes a generalized version of his ecumene zones (see Gajda's original map in Figure 2.3). McCann notes that Zone II contains most of Canada's resource-based towns and Zone III contains only a few (McCann 1980, p. 217).

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Notes

1. A census subdivision (CSD) is the general term for municipalities (as determined by provincial/territorial legislation) or areas treated as municipal equivalents for statistical purposes (e.g., Indian reserves, Indian settlements and unorganized territories). (Statistics Canada 2007b)
2. An enumeration area (EA) is a geographic area canvassed by one census representative and is used for census data collection. EAs cover all the territory of Canada. The term is discontinued for the 2006 Census. The dissemination area (DA) replaced the EA as a basic unit for dissemination starting with the 2001 Census.
3. The term Thule is often referred to by anthropologists to mean the prehistoric (or prehistoric through historic) Inuit who bore Thule culture (McCartney 1979, p. 3).
4. Rundstrom's paper was written before the official establishment of Nunavut (April 1, 1999).