Themes in World Regional Geography

1. Themes in World Regional Geography Geo100 - Fall 2003 Julie Hwang Lecture #2

2. Outlines • Environmental Geography • Population Geography • Cultural Geography • Political Geography • Economic Geography

3. Population and Settlement

4. World Population • 6 billion humans on Earth

5. Population growth & change in the world regions • Rapid growth in the developing world • Stabilized in developed countries • Population growth/change is caused by • natural growth (by birth offset by death) • Migration (by in & out-migration)

6. Demographic indicators • RNI (Rate of Natural Increase) • Annual growth rate for a country • (#birth – #death) / total population • Migration is not considered • TFR (Total Fertility Rate) • Average number of children borne by a statistically average woman

7. Demographic indicators • % population under 15 • Indicates rapid population growth • Need for nutrition, health care • higher in less-developed countries • % population over 65 • Need for social welfare services • higher in more-developed countries

8. Demographic indicators • Population pyramids

9. Demographic Transition Model • How population growth rates change over time? • Phase1: Preindustrial • high birth & death rate • Phase2: Transitional • death rate  (<- onset of public health measure) • Phase3: Transitional • birth rate  (<- aware of advantages of smaller families) • Phase4: Industrial • low birth & death rate

10. Demographic Transition Model

11. Migration Patterns • Increase in international migration due to globalized economy • Move from rural to urban environments due to urbanization • What contributes to migration? • Push factor: civil strife, political refugee • Pull factor: better economic opportunity • Informational networks

12. World Urbanization • Currently 46% of world’s population in cities

13. Cities over 10 million • Rapid growth in the developing world • Slow growth in the developed world

14. Conceptualizing the City • Urban primacy • Dominates economic, political, and cultural activities within the country • Overurbanization • urban population grows more quickly than support services such as housing, transportation, waste disposal, and water supply • Squatter settlements • illegal developments of makeshift housing on land neither owned nor rented by their inhabitants

15. Example of squatter settlements

16. Cultural Coherence and Diversity

17. Culture • Learned, and not innate, behavior • Shared, and not individual, behavior • “Way of life” • Dynamic rather than static • Process, not a condition

18. Spectrum of cultural groups • Folk culture • shared by self-sufficient rural group • Ethnic culture • Common ancestry, race, religion, or language • Popular culture • Primarily urban-based, superficial relationships between people, weaker family structure • World culture • subset of popular culture, indeterminate nationality, mixed cultural value

19. Membership of cultural groups • Common to have association with multiple cultural groups • eg. Amish young people interacts with popular culture while talking their primary identity from their folk culture

20. Cultural Collision • Cultural imperialism • Promotes one cultural system at the expense of another (eg. European colonialism) • Cultural nationalism • As the reaction against cultural imperialism; defends cultural system against diluting forces; promotes national and local cultural values • Cultural syncretism or hybridization • Blending of forces to form a new, synergistic form of culture

21. World Languages Based on language families

22. World Religions • Universalizing religions • Appeal to all peoples regardless of location or culture (eg. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) • Ethnic religions • Identified closely with a specific ethnic, tribal, or national group (eg. Judaism, Hinduism)

23. World Religions • Christianity: 2 billion – Europe, Africa, Latin America, and North America • Islam: 1.2 billion – Arabian Peninsula, Some Southeast Asia • Buddhism: 300-900 million – Asia; Rather mixed

24. Geopolitical framework

25. Geopolitics • Describes the link between geography and political activity

26. State & Nation • State • political entity with territorial boundaries • Nation • a large group of people who share cultural elements such as language, religion, tradition, cultural identity

27. Nation-state congruence • Nation-state • Relatively homogenous cultural group with its own political territory • Ideal political model; relatively rare (eg. Japan) • Multinational state • A country that contains different cultural and ethnic groups • More common than nation-state (eg. US) • Nation without a state • Nations lacking recognized, self-governed territory (eg. Palestinians, Kurds, Basques, Catalans)

28. Example of nation without a state Not all nations or large cultural groups control their own political territories or states

29. Centrifugal & Centripetal forces • Centrifugal forces • Forces that weaken or divide a state • eg. Quebec, Basque • Centripetal forces • Forces that unite or reinforce a state • eg. Germany in the 1990s

30. Example of Centrifugal & Centripetal forces Cold War

31. Boundaries • Ethnographic boundaries • Political boundaries that follow cultural traits such as language or religion (eg. European boundaries after WWI) • Geometric boundaries • Drawn without regard for physical or cultural features (eg. Africa in a colonial era)

32. Example of ethnographic boundaries WWI After WWI, empires were largely replaced by nation-states.

33. Example of geometric boundaries The lack of congruence between ethnic boundaries and political borders often results in civil war

34. Colonialism & Decolonialization • Colonialism • Formal establishment of rule over a foreign population • Decolonialization • Process of a colony’s gaining(regaining) control over its territory and establishing a independent government • They are fundamental forces in the shaping of the modern world system

35. The Colonial World, 1914

36. Consequences of Colonialism • In general, disadvantaged because of a much-reduced resource base, but varies from place to place • Continuing exchange of human networks • Economic ties between certain imperial powers and their former colonies are still found

37. International & Supranational organizations • International organizations • links together two or more states for some specific purpose, but does not affect the sovereignty of each state (eg. UN, OPEC, NATO, ASEAN, NAFTA) • Supranational organizations • organization of nation-states linked together with a common goal, but which requires each to give up some sovereignty (eg. EU, Arab League)

38. Economic/Social development

39. Core-periphery model • As a way of understanding increasing uneven development between more/less-developed countries • Developed core achieved its wealth primarily by exploiting the periphery, either through more recent economic imperialism • Dependence may be structure through the relations of exchange, production between core and periphery

40. World Economic Core Areas • Economic activity is clustered around these core areas while outlying areas are underdeveloped

41. Indicators of economic development • GNI • the value of all final goods and services produced within a country plus net income from abroad • Measures the size of economy • GNIper capita (at market exchange rate) • GNI divided by country’s population • GNI per capita at purchasing power parity • GNI adjusted for differences in prices and exchange rates • Living standards with the local currency

42. GNI per capita at MER • What a nation can buy outside the nation • GNI per capital at PPP • What a nation can buy inside the nation

43. Indicators of social development • Life expectancy • average length of life expected at birth for a hypothetical male or female, as based on national death statistics • Under age 5 mortality • measure of the number of children who die per 1,000 persons

44. Indicators of social development • Adult illiteracy rates • percentage of a society’s males and females who cannot read • Female labor force participation • percentage of a nation’s labor force that is female

45. Give insights into the social conditions such as health care, sanitation, homocide rate, prevalence of disease…

46. Sustainable development • Concept on limits to development • Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations • “Intergenerational equity”