为什么气候较为寒冷的国家比温暖的国家更发达

Why are colder countries more developed than the warmer ones?

为什么气候较为寒冷的国家比温暖的国家更发达

以下是Quora读者的评论：

Kauan Mateus Kubaski, Bolsista De Iniciação Científica

This has a hint of historical coincidence and human adaptability and has nothing to do with ethnic superiority.

Let us see that the developed nations are not "cold weather" necessarily if we consider this only as continental climate. In general they are temperate climates.

In addition, let's look at some interesting data:

这只是历史巧合和人类适应力的问题，与民族优越感无关。

发达国家并不一定就是“寒冷天气”，这种气候只是大陆性气候。一般来说，这些国家处于温带气候地区。

此外，让我们来看看一些有趣的数据：

Ukraine has a stricter winter than France, but the latter is more developed. French GDP per capita is almost 17 times larger than the country that was once part of the USSR.
California in the US is much milder than North Dakota and may have infernal temperatures along the off-shore valleys in the summer. GDP per capita is as high as the state of New York.
South China is the richest region in the country. Shenzen is farther south than any Chinese city and is the most imposing of all.
Nigeria is the richest country on the African continent. And yet it has the second largest ethnic and linguistic diversity in the world. Although there is typical social inequality of the countries of the south this nation has climate and vegetation similar of the second poorest African country (Zimbabwe).
The most interesting: GDP per capita (which is more important than gross income) than Equatorial Guine is higher than that of Portugal. That is, the problems are more political (drial governments / maldistribution) than pure poverty.

1. 乌克兰的冬天比法国更苦寒，但法国更为发达。法国的人均GDP几乎是前苏联的17倍。

2. 美国加州的气候比北达科他州要温和得多，夏季沿海山谷的气温可能高得可怕。人均GDP和纽约州一样高。

3. 华南是中国最富裕的地区。深圳比中国任何一个城市都要靠南，是所有城市中最出众的。

4. 尼日利亚是非洲大陆上最富有的国家。然而，它拥有全球第二大的种族和语言多样性。尽管南部地区存在典型的社会不平等，但这个国家的气候和植被与非洲第二贫穷的国家(津巴布韦)相似。

5. 最有趣的是：赤道几内亚的人均GDP(比总收入更重要)高于葡萄牙。也就是说，比起纯粹的贫困问题，这些问题更具有政治性(独才政府/分配不均)。

Balaji Viswanathan, an engineer.

Other than the 19-20th century CE, cold weather regions were not really ahead of the economies of warmer regions. Historically, the civilization was centered around warm, tropics & subtropics. The first 5 civilizations - Sumer, Nile valley, Indus Valley, Yellow river valley, Norte Chico - were all in subtropics. The ones that followed - in Greece, Persia, Rome were in the same zone too. [Subtropics often were better than tropics because the latter was often next to dense rainforests with wildlife & epidemic dangers.] Still the warmer regions performed better throughout history.

除了19-20世纪，寒冷地区的经济并没有真正领先于温暖地区。历史上，人类文明主要集中在温带、热带和亚热带地区。最早的5个文明——苏美尔、尼罗河谷、印度河流域、黄河流域、北奇科——都处于亚热带地区。紧随其后出现的希腊，波斯，罗马也在同一区域。亚热带通常比热带好，因为热带地区多有着充斥着野生动物和流行病风险的茂密雨林。尽管如此，从历史上来看，较温暖的地区的表现会更好一些。

Colonialism changed this dynamic for the first time. I will explain this how. The cold weather regions have very low population density as not many people preferred cold winters. This allowed the farmers to have much larger lands and more potential mines & mineral resources. Until the modern era, these were hard to tap though.

When industrial revolution came, the technology drastically helped those in cold climates. Mechanised farming - tractors and other machines - allowed industrial scale farming over those lands. This allowed the farmers to get rich because they had now huge lands that could be fully tapped. Factories also could now get minerals resources and infrastructure as large parts of their countries were sparsely occupied. In contrast, industrial revolution could not do much to densely populated tropics that already had high farming productivity - but shared by a large number of farmers. Tropics were too densely populated - meaning lesser resources & lesser room or infrastructure.

殖民*义第一次改变了这种情况。我来解释一下为什么这么说。寒冷地区的人口密度很低，因为人们基本都不喜欢寒冷的冬天。这使得农民拥有更大片的土地和更多的潜在矿藏和矿产资源。在现代之前，这些资源都很难开发。

工业革命爆发时，科学技术极大地帮助了那些生活在寒冷气候中的人。机械化耕作——拖拉机和其他机器——让人们可以在这些土地上进行大规模工业化耕作。这使农民们富裕起来，因为他们拥有了可以充分开发的大片土地。工厂也可以获得矿产资源和基础设施，因为这些国家的大部分地区都人烟稀少。相比之下，工业革命对人口稠密的热带地区并无太大助益，因为那里已经拥有很高的农业生产率，但土地被大量农民共享。热带地区人口太过密集，意味着资源、空间或基础设施就较为紧张。

Other aspect colonialism did was to open up huge markets. England had a small domestic market - population was small. But, through its colonies it got a huge market for its textile mills and industries. In earlier times there was not much international trade and thus those in sparsely populated regions could not benefit from their innovations.

In 21st century CE, we are entering a post-industrial era and the pendulum might be shifting again. Mines and lands are not as important as they were in say 20th century. It is about the number of minds networked. In this, the subtropics/tropics such as California, Singapore, Shanghai or Bangalore are getting back in the game. The size of the domestic market matters big once again - as Californian startups could attest and density helps in various other ways too for an information economy.

殖民*义带来的另一个成果是打开了巨大的市场。英格兰的国内市场很小，人口也很少。但通过殖民地，英格兰的纺织厂和工业获得了巨大的消费市场。在早期，国际贸易并不活跃，因此那些人口稀少地区的人不能从他们的科技创新中受益。

而进入21世纪，我们步入了后工业时代，局面可能又将再次改变。矿场和土地不再像20世纪那么重要。网络化人才的数量才是关键。因此，亚热带/热带地区，如加利福尼亚、新加坡、上海或班加罗尔等地再次入局。美国国内市场的规模再次举足轻重起来——加州的初创企业可以证明这一点，而人口密度对信息经济也有很多其他方面的助益。

Benjamin Lucas, lives in Brazil

The theory that cold environments would be more conducive to the development of technologically advanced civilizations was widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The argument behind it is that the cold climate would have offered extra challenges to survival, thus favoring a process of evolution of society. In the tropics, where "just reaching out" to pick a fruit, people would have been indolent, with no reason to move forward.

It's a fake. There are multiple examples of advanced cultures in the tropics. The earliest known civilizations have developed in tropical and subtropical regions - the Sumerians, the Egyptians, and the Indus Valley civilization.

在19、20世纪，寒冷环境更有利于先进科技文明的发展的理论广为流传。

其背后的论点是，寒冷的气候会给人类生存带来更多挑战，因此有利于社会的进化。而热带地区的人“只需伸伸手”采摘水果就能果腹，所以他们很懒，没有理由进步。

这是一个伪命题。热带地区有过很多先进文化的例证。人类已知最早的文明就是在热带和亚热带地区发展起来的—苏美尔人、埃及人和印度河流域文明。

In the Americas, the mighty Mayans and Aztecs were in tropical regions, while the natives of icy Canada and Patagonia did not achieve the same sophistication. In the Pacific, the kingdoms of Indonesia were much richer than those of New Zealand, where it snows every year. And so on: History proves that there is nothing wrong with the tropics.

The "backwardness" of the tropical regions only arose with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, which made Europe gain a technological and hence military advantage unprecedented. A revolution born of very specific conditions, which never exsted before, in the tropics or in the Arctic.

An event that has many explanations - but the cold is not one. And that spread to other European countries not because they were cold, but because they were close, geographical. economically and culturally.

在美洲，强大的玛雅人和阿兹特克人就生活在热带地区，而冰雪覆盖的加拿大人和巴塔哥尼亚人并未发展到同样的文明水平。在太平洋上，印度尼西亚王国比新西兰王国富裕得多，而新西兰每年都会下雪。这样的例子数不胜数，历史证明热带地区并没有任何问题。

热带地区的“落后”是在18世纪的工业革命中才慢慢出现的，工业革命使欧洲获得了前所未有的技术和军事优势。这场革命诞生于非常特殊的环境条件下，这是以前在热带或北极地区从未发生过的。

这一事件有很多解释，但寒冷天气不是其中之一。这种现象传到了其他欧洲国家，原因也并非这些国家也很冷，而是因为它们距离很近，地理位置、经济和文化上都很接近。

Hans Regali, Allergy ridden geek

Italy alone can be proof of this. Same nation, same politics, yet the north is far more developed than the south, with industrialization fading with the latitude as we move towards warmer climate. Obviously it isn’t the only factor, but temperature certainly matters.

I’ve read quite a few quite politically correct answers here. As usual “all men are the same”, “cultural diversity does not exst”, “those who state that colder countries are more developed are nazi white supremacists”.

It is important to note that such answers do not heed the question’s use of the simple present, and focus instead on the former glories of ancient civilizations that had no means or hope to survive in colder regions. A notion that reinforces the idea that a higher quantity of inventiveness, organization and proactiveness are required to survive and thrive in colder climates.

意大利就可以证明这一点。同一个国家，同一种政治体制，可北方比南方发达得多，人们向温暖气候地区迁徙，而工业化随着纬度的变化而减弱。显然，这不是唯一的因素，但温度肯定很重要。

我在这里看到了不少政治正确的答案。和大多数问题一样，“所有的男人都一样”，“文化多样性并不存在”，“那些称寒冷国家更发达的人是白人至上主义的纳粹分子”。

但值得注意的是，这些答案没有注意到提问中“现在时态”的使用，而是把重点放在了古代文明的昔日辉煌上，这些文明没有办法、没有希望在寒冷的地区生存下去。这个概念强化了这样一种观点，即在寒冷的气候中生存和发展需要更多的创造性、组织性和主动性。

Sam van Lekker, lives in London

This is just the way of the world at the moment..

people will have theories along the lines of how survival was traditionally tougher in colder climates, how people were forced to be more resourceful, how it forced people to think longer term, plan for tomorrow and be flexble to change and adapt with different seasons etc.. all this contributing to a mindset that has lent itself better to innovation today..

most developed nations are generally the most innovative.

however in the past this was different, some of the oldest human civilisations full stop occurred in warm climates.. ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient India etc.. these civilisations were way ahead of their time much more so than in the colder more advanced western nations of today were back then. Then of course south east Asia was very civilised in the past which is entirely tropical.. allot of other examples exst too..

目前的世界就是这样。

人们会顺着“传统上而言，在寒冷气候下生存更为艰难”的思路得出一些理论：环境迫使人们发挥聪明才智，迫使人们未雨绸缪，为明天做好规划，灵活地改变和适应不同的季节等等。所有这些都有助于形成有利于创新的思维方式。

大多数发达国家通常都是最具创新性的。

但历史上并非如此，有些最古老的人类文明出现在温暖的气候地区。古美索不达米亚、古埃及、古印度等都是如此。这些文明遥遥领先于他们所处的时代，比当时那些气候更冷的西方国家要超前得多。当然，东南亚在历史上是非常文明的，他们位于热带地区。这样的例子还有很多。

civilisations rise and fall regardless of the weather, environment and climate.. it’s true that different conditions have advantages and disadvantages but it largely depends of how advantages are used.. for example warmer climates have better land and overall conditions to grow food hence the development of agriculture and tools for farming Etc.. which lead to more innovation .. then on the flip side, for the same reason, someone can claim warmer climates are unsuccessful because survival was easy with ample fertile land and sunshine hours - hence had to work less hard and think less to survive..

In conclusion, advanced societies have exsted in both warm and cold climates.. even today there are a whole host of cold countries which are poor.

文明的兴衰与天气、环境和气候无关。的确，不同的气候条件各有优缺点，但很大程度上取决于如何利用自身的优点。例如，温暖的气候有更好的土地和综合条件来种植食物，因此农业和耕作工具得到了发展，进一步带来了更多的创新。另一方面，出于同样的原因，有人会说温暖的气候并非好事，因为有着充足的肥沃土地和阳光，人类容易生存，无需辛苦劳作，无需忧思。

总之，发达国家在温暖和寒冷的气候环境中都有分布。即便在今天，还有许多寒冷的国家依然贫穷。

I don’t want to mention these nations and potentially insult readers.. but if you look at the world map properly you’ll realise that there are allot of cold countries that have been left out of the developed world and are as underdeveloped as anywhere.

it all depends on the individuals ability to think and the right political environment that allows growth and development - environment isn’t always a factor..

look at Holland.. they are the second biggest agricultural exporter in the world.. all this with a tiny country and allot less fertile land than most nations.. how? Will, thinking, inventing, solving problems etc..

the human mind is incredible and works in all environments.

one fine day the human mind will cause the fall of the developed nations of today and give rise to another part of the world which will become the new the developed world.. this is how life is, and how it’s always been. Our minds make the world tick.. cause change, rise and fall

我不想列出这些国家的名字，可能会让某些读者不悦。但是，如果你仔细看一下世界地图，你就会意识到，有很多寒冷的国家被排除在发达国家之外，如同其他地方一样都不发达。

这一切都取决于个人的思考能力和促进增长和发展的正确的政治环境——自然环境并不总是那么重要。

看看荷兰吧，他们是世界第二大农业出口国。荷兰是一个弹丸小国，它的肥沃土地比大多数国家都少得多。他们是如何做到的？意志，思考，发明，解决问题，等等。

人类的智慧是不可思议的，能在所有的环境中发挥作用。

总有一天，人类的智慧会使今天的发达国家垮台，让地球上另一个地方崛起为发达国家的新世界。这就是生活，从未改变。我们的智慧引领世界运转，日新月异，兴衰起伏。