The frontier was not solely linguistic: there were also differences in customs (notably of inheritance) and in architecture. Owen characterised the cultural frontier in 1602 as both sharp and stable, and subsequent observers (with less local knowledge than Owen) have reiterated his description, and suggested that the line remained close to that described by Owen. The first objective, statistically based description of the frontier was made in the 1960s, and showed a line similar to that described by Owen, although in some places it had moved north, while in others it had moved south. People in the frontier zone did not recognise the term “Landsker”, but were well aware of the location of the boundary. Rather than a sharp line of demarcation, the boundary consists of a corridor of mixed language, typically 3–5 km wide, in which the direction of language trend varies according to the migration characteristics of the inhabitants. The frontier zone has probably always had these characteristics.