I recently visited Bebenhausen Abbey in Tuebingen, Germany. One of the various informative panels there depicted the spread of Reformed Benedictine Monasteries throughout Europe (Cluniac and Cistercian, at the very least). Unfortunately I am not a German speaker, and could only glean so much from the panel. However, I did notice that almost all of the 'Mother Houses' for these reformed abbeys began is the Djion area of France.
Is there a particular reason that many different order of reformed Benedictines arose from the same place within a few hundred years of each other? And that no similar reformed abbeys arose independently in other Catholic countries with existing Benedictine traditions?
Cluny and Cîteaux, the first Cistercian foundation, were located in Burgundy. This location had several features beneficial to the spread of both orders: decent population, powerful and wealthy nobility, good farmland. All these factors certainly aided both orders greatly. The 10th through 13th centuries, moreover, saw what can only be termed as a genuine desire for religious experience, and that desire often manifested in reform movements.
However, the two orders did not develop in a vacuum. A great part of the Cistercian founding ideal was to break away from the ornate Cluniac tradition and return to a life closer to the Rule of St. Benedict. Some of this is rhetorical polemic, but there's some truth underneath it.
The one clear advantage that came from Cîteaux's placement is that in 1113 it attracted a young Burgundian nobleman (with 30 of his followers) named Bernard. Within two years, he was given his own abbey, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, as we now know him, was one of the major catalysts for the growth and prestige of the Cistercian order.