People in the Mountains - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 486

ies within and at the edge of mountains are often integrated into the global economy,
as Borsdorf and Paal (2000) demonstrated for the Alps. Close to a third of the world's
mountain people live in urban areas. The largest urban areas are located on mountain
margins and high plateaus, some at high altitudes. The degree to which they have been
and are integrated with the mountain environment historically and socioeconomically
varies, but all are influenced geoecologically by proximity and/or altitude. They differ
geoecologically, historically, and socioeconomically somewhat from those cities located
in the mountains, which tend to be smaller. Large mountain margin or plateau cities
(population >1 million) include Mexico City, Caracas, Bogota (Fig. 10.3), Quito, La Paz,
Santiago, Denver, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Geneva, Zurich, Addis Ababa, Nairobi,
Tehran, Chandigarh, Dehra Dun, Siliguri, Kathmandu, Chengdu, and Kunming. Some,
such as Vancouver and Chandigarh, are at a very low altitude, but nonetheless are
bordered and influenced by mountains. Others, especially those in Latin America, are
at very high elevations, including La Paz, Bolivia (3,500-3,800 m), and the new city of
El Alto on the Altiplano (3,850-4,100 m), Quito, Ecuador (2,850 m), Bogota, Colombia
(2,650 m), and Mexico City (2,250 m) with a population of about 21 million.
FIGURE 10.4 Darjeeling, in the front ranges of the Sikkim Himalaya, India, is a ridgetop settlement
founded in 1840 as an administrative, health, tourist, and tea cultivation center, attracting thou-
sands of economic and amenity migrant/settlers from surrounding parts of India and Nepal.
Kangchenjunga, third highest mountain in the world, is in the background. (Photo by J. S. Gard-
ner.)
Urban and suburban areas that are fully enclosed by and closely integrated with the
mountain environment tend to be much smaller but nonetheless functionally diverse
(Batzing et al. 1996; Perlik and Messerli 2004; Stadel 1986). Most are located in valleys