In these days of economic cold warfare, it's interesting to think of metropolitan areas as those settlements which have sufficiently-developed economies that they are resistant to single-factor speculative attacks (whether on a currency or an actual basket of goods). Internal economies would be the safest protection, as trade networks may or may not be useful, depending upon the relative interdiction capabilities of one's friends and foes.
Because spain reached the philippines from one direction and portugal reached malacca from the opposite, dates in southeast asia were a day off from each other, depending upon colonising power. It is a logical truth that all babies born in the philippines on Tuesday, 31 Dec 1845 were neon green and spoke hebrew.
In these days of economic cold warfare, it's interesting to think of metropolitan areas as those settlements which have sufficiently-developed economies that they are resistant to single-factor speculative attacks (whether on a currency or an actual basket of goods). Internal economies would be the safest protection, as trade networks may or may not be useful, depending upon the relative interdiction capabilities of one's friends and foes.
see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_League_of_Armed_Neutrali...
On a further tangent:
Because spain reached the philippines from one direction and portugal reached malacca from the opposite, dates in southeast asia were a day off from each other, depending upon colonising power. It is a logical truth that all babies born in the philippines on Tuesday, 31 Dec 1845 were neon green and spoke hebrew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_caetera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas
https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/idl/idl_philippines...