Travel /
Kielce and the area - amazing Polish Pocket Knives live there [105]
Plus Poland industrialised later than say France, Germany etc and far later than Britain
I'm not sure if this has that much to do with it - if you look at the map of Europe the Great European Plain encompasses almost entire Poland with the exception of a very narrow strip in the South of Poland - and that's where we have mountains. In case of France and Germany it's the other way around - the Great European Plain takes up only a strip in the North of those countries and doesn't even touch Spain, Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Scandinavian countries and, obviously, the UK and Ireland which are islands. 🤔
Atch will be able to say more about this, of course, but when I look at the map of Ireland - it looks pretty hilly to me and sounds like a pretty varied landscape too:
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/5343/topography-of-ireland
"The topography of the island of Ireland features a
hilly, central lowland composed of limestone
surrounded by a broken border of coastal mountains. The mountain ranges vary greatly in geological structure. The mountain ridges of the south are composed of old, red sandstone
separated by limestone river valleys. The limestone valleys appear as deep green grooves that tend to run in an east-west direction. (...)
The central plain,
broken in places by low hills, is extensively covered with glacial deposits of clay and sand. It has
considerable areas of bog and numerous lakes."
I also doubt that Ireland industrialised as fast and heavily as what is the UK today considering Irish history, Great Famine, etc.
the road building history is closer (though not identical) to that of America which didn't actually have many major roads until after the railroad boom started
Half of the US is flat, then there are the Great Plains and the other half are the Rocky Mountains and it shows in the road map:
ontheworldmap.com/usa/usa-road-map.html
So, I think that every country's topography is the biggest factor in the way roads look like. I mean, that's logical - you have to go around hills, mountains, lakes, bogs, etc. :))
