Mortality near a large city: the rural area of Madrid in the 18th and 19th centuries

This research focuses on the medium and long-term evolution of mortality levels in the rural areas of the province of Madrid during the 18th and 19th centuries. As previous papers have shown, between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the dawn of the demographic transition at the end of the nineteenth century, this variable declined in several provinces of interior Spain that were scarcely urbanized. This paper analyses the trajectory of mortality in an area, the rural surroundings of Madrid, characterized by its proximity to a large city that was rapidly growing. The most relevant conclusions are: (i) the closeness to the capital of the monarchy did not significantly increased or reduced, at least in net terms, the risk of death in rural Madrid during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; (ii) between 1725-1749 and 1865-1889, the crude mortality rate fell back in rural Madrid about 20%; and, (iii) adult and ordinary mortality were key to understand this decline in general mortality.