Previously Cracow's trade relations with the rest of the European continent from its beginnings to the end of the eighteenth century have not greatly interested many scholars, particularly of non-Polish descent. One has only to peruse the geographical literature on the city both in Poland and elsewhere to realize how little has been produced on any aspect of Cracow's historical geography. Perhaps in Poland this is related to the lack of scholarly interest in urban historical geography, whilst non-Polish urban historical geographers have been deterred by the enormity of the task, involving linguistic problems and the interpretation of documentary evidence from archival sources. In this case, a study of Cracow's trade relations with the rest of Europe over a long time period has involved the author in the collection of data from over a dozen countries, in order to attempt a spatial analysis of the city's commercial influence on a temporal basis.

Literature on the historical geography of Cracow

Before one can appraise the limited literature on Cracow's historical geography, it is necessary to define what is understood by the limits of the sub-discipline. Certainly, historical geographers are concerned with understanding the past, and it is this that separates them from the interests represented by other branches of the subject. Traditional historical research has tended to rely heavily on empirical analysis, and there is little evidence to suggest among recently published papers that this is changing.