>>18426285
By value or volume? All your map shows are trade routes and France/Germany simply have many navigable rivers that connect to the mediterranean sea. Additionally it seems your map focuses on the Hanse so it is expected that the german/northern european trade routes are more highlighted.

access to trade via the coast and navigable rivers, lush farmland

>>18426285
Very densely populated with artisans who made things that could be traded. The combination of hajnal family patterns and the germanic custom of kicking out the youth meant that guilds were relatively open to people outside founding lineages. So while in a Constantinople or Cairo the vast majority of people would be service workers, day laborers, or beggars, Northwestern European urbanites were much more likely to have jobs where they made things.
Additionally, medieval European governments were mostly decentralized and based in the countryside, so they cared more about rural production than urban. This means they didn't prevent villages from developing their own industries with their abundant, which powerful city-states in Italy and the low countries absolutely did where they could. By contrast, Byzantine and Islamic power structures were all located in cities whose protectionist demands they'd constantly be appeasing, and they packaged their countrysides into short-term exploitation rights for members of the elite, incentivizing them to collect as much money as they could at the cost of prosperity.
So you can see how Northwestern Europe would just generate a lot more to trade than equivalent areas to the south and east

>>18426326
>Europe has a lot better rivers
But no rare ore or amber or preindustrial engineering epicenters at each end of them. Gaul is all, Caesar, Charlemagne and others understood this.

>>18426326
>the main reason is density
are you that gdp = tourism dickhead

there was no significant export of "celtic" iron to the middle east, iron is generally abundant and there were high purity iron reserves in places closer like anatolia, further the idea that iron exports alone explains the later great divergence and astounding european success is ridiculous, it could not have been more than a tiny fraction of GDP

>>18426471
Iron is generally abundant, but wood is not. To make things from you need to burn a lot of coal or charcoal, and it was almost always the latter back then. This plus the greater density of artisans meant that Medieval European metalwork was exported in large quantities to the Middle East.

>>18426285
piracy(or lack of it)

>>18426416
>This means they didn't prevent villages from developing their own industries with their abundant
Can you name any examples? I only know of deliberate city foundings by territorial lords to strenghten their position (many cities in Germany for example like Düsseldorlf, Leipzig [related to this thread as the Margrave of Meißen granted this settlement the rights to hold markets and the rights to become a city due to its location on several trade routes - which was an important source of revenue for the margraviate] or Berlin).
>>18427224
Well there was quite a lot of piracy in the north and baltic sea in the high and late middle ages. But the Hanse, Denmark, Sweden and the Teutonic Order harshly prosecuted them.

>>18426285
Crazy how hard Germans and Italians have had to carry Europe

>>18427343
Best example I can immediately think of is in Flanders, where Ghent harshly repressed all rural industry in its vicinity on the Flemish coast, and their patricians dispossessed the local peasants to use the area for large grain plantations.
Meanwhile, the vicinity of the other big Flemish city Bruges (called the Franc of Bruges) was given special political rights by the Counts of Flanders, so they were able to assert their own interests and keep their local industries at the cost of some special tribute. Interestingly, this happened even though all of the Franc of Bruges elites actually lived in Bruges itself, because their economic interests were outside.
Also, in the more inland reaches of Flanders, villages without the special rights of the Franc of Bruges were able to use their lords as a nucleus to organize against the unwanted interests of city patricians, keeping their dispersed land ownership structure and cottage industries at the cost of retaining feudal social features like the obligation to work several days a year on their lords' fields.