CASE STUDY / Changing Borders in Europeby Prussia (which a year later formed the core of the newly pro-claimed German Empire). France regained Alsace and Lorraineafter Germany was defeated in World War I and has possessedthem ever since, except between 1940 and 1945 when Ger-many controlled them during World War II.

With the end of the Cold War and the demise of commu-nism in Eastern Europe, France and Germany now lie at thecore of the world’s wealthiest market area. Most French andGerman people consider the pursuit of higher standards of liv-ing to be more important than rehashing centuries-old bound-ary disputes.

Although old boundaries between France and Germany havebeen virtually eliminated, new ones have been erected else-where in Europe. Travelers between Ljubljana and Zagreb nowmust show their passports and convert their cash into a differentcurrency. These two cities were once part of the same country—Yugoslavia—but now they are the capitals of two separate coun-tries, Slovenia and Croatia. Similarly, travelers between Vilniusand Moscow—both once part of the Soviet Union—now mustshow their passports and change money when they cross theinternational boundary between Lithuania and Russia. ■

Daniel Lenig lives in the village of Rittershoffen and works at aMercedes-Benz truck factory in the town of Worth, about 50kilometers (30 miles) away. Lenig’s journey to work takes himacross an international border, because Rittershoffen is inFrance, whereas Worth is in Germany. As a citizen of France,Lenig has no legal difficulty crossing the German–French bor-der twice a day; no guards ask him to show his passport orrequire him to pay customs duties on goods he purchases onthe other side. If he is delayed, the cause is heavy traffic on thebridge that spans the Rhine River, which serves as the borderbetween the two countries.

The boundary between France and Germany has not alwaysbeen so easy to cross peacefully. The French have long arguedthat the Rhine River forms the logical physical boundarybetween France and Germany. But the Germans once claimedthat they should control the Rhine, including the lowlands onthe French side between the west bank of the river and the Vos-ges Mountains, an area known as Alsace.

Alsace was initially inhabited by Germanic tribes but wasannexed by France in 1670. Two centuries later, in 1870,Alsace and its neighboring province of Lorraine were captured

For several decades during the Cold War, many countriesbelonged to one of two regions, one allied with the formerSoviet Union and the other allied with the United States. Withthe end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the global political land-scape changed fundamentally.

Geographic concepts help us to understand this changingpolitical organization of Earth’s surface. We can also use geo-graphic methods to examine the causes of political change andinstability and to anticipate potential trouble spots around theworld.

When looking at satellite images of Earth, we easily distin-guish places—landmasses and water bodies, mountains andrivers, deserts and fertile agricultural land, urban areas andforests. What we cannot see are where boundaries are locatedbetween countries. Boundary lines are not painted on Earth, butthey might as well be, for these national divisions are very real.

To many, national boundaries are more meaningful thannatural features. One of Earth’s most fundamental culturalcharacteristics—one that we take for granted—is the divisionof our planet’s surface into a collection of spaces occupied byindividual countries.

In the post–Cold War era, the familiar division of the worldinto countries or states is crumbling. Geographers observe whythis familiar division of the world is changing. Between themid-1940s and the late 1980s two superpowers—the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union—essentially “ruled” the world. Ason superpowers, they competed at a global scale. But theUnited States is less dominant in the political landscape of thetwenty-first century, and the Soviet Union no longer exists.

Today, globalization means more connections among states.Individual countries have transferred military, economic, and

political authority to regional and worldwide collections ofstates. Power is exercised through connections among statescreated primarily for economic cooperation.

Despite (or perhaps because of) greater global politicalcooperation, local diversity has increased in political affairs, asindividual cultural groups demand more control over the terri-tory they inhabit. States have transferred power to local gov-ernments, but this does not placate cultural groups who seekcomplete independence.

Wars have broken out in recent years—both between smallneighboring states and among cultural groups within coun-tries—over political control of territory. Old countries havebeen broken up in a collection of smaller ones, some barely vis-ible on world maps.

KEY ISSUE 1

Where Are StatesLocated?

■ Problems of Defining States■ Varying Size of States■ Development of the State Concept

The question posed in this key issue may seem self-evident,because a map of the world shows that virtually all habit-able land belongs to a country. But for most of history, untilrecently, this was not so. As recently as the 1940s, the world

240

contained only about 50 countries, compared to 192 mem-bers of the United Nations as of 2009. (Refer ahead toFigure 8-5.) ■

Problems of Defining StatesA state is an area organized into a political unit and ruled by anestablished government that has control over its internal andforeign affairs. It occupies a defined territory on Earth’s surfaceand contains a permanent population. The term country is asynonym for state. A state has sovereignty, which means inde-pendence from control of its internal affairs by other states.Because the entire area of a state is managed by its national gov-ernment, laws, army, and leaders, it is a good example of a for-mal or uniform region. The term state, as used in politicalgeography, does not refer to the 50 regional governments insidethe United States. The 50 states of the United States are subdi-visions within a single state—the United States of America.

There is some disagreement about the actual number of sov-ereign states. Among places that test the definition of a state areKorea, China, and Western Sahara (Sahrawi Republic).

Korea: One State or Two?A colony of Japan for many years, Korea was divided into twooccupation zones by the United States and the former SovietUnion after they defeated Japan in World War II (Figure 8-1).The country was divided into northern and southern sections

along 38° north latitude. The division of these zones becamepermanent in the late 1940s, when the two superpowers estab-lished separate governments and withdrew their armies. Thenew government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(North Korea) then invaded the Republic of Korea (SouthKorea) in 1950, touching off a 3-year war that ended with acease-fire line near the 38th parallel.

Both Korean governments are committed to reuniting thecountry into one sovereign state. Leaders of the two countriesagreed in 2000 to allow exchange visits of families separated fora half century by the division and to increase economic cooper-ation. However, progress toward reconciliation was halted byNorth Korea’s decision to build nuclear weapons, even thoughthe country lacked the ability to provide its citizens with food,electricity, and other basic needs. Meanwhile, in 1992, NorthKorea and South Korea were admitted to the United Nations asseparate countries.

China and Taiwan: One State or Two?Are China and the island of Taiwan two sovereign states or one?Most other countries consider China (officially, the People’sRepublic of China) and Taiwan (officially, the Republic ofChina) as separate and sovereign states. According to China’sgovernment, Taiwan is not sovereign, but a part of China. Thisconfusing situation arose from a civil war in China during thelate 1940s between the Nationalists and the Communists. Afterlosing, nationalist leaders in 1949 fled to Taiwan, 200 kilome-ters (120 miles) off the Chinese coast.

The Nationalists proclaimed that they were still the legiti-mate rulers of the entire country of China. Until some futureoccasion when they could defeat the Communists and recap-ture all of China, the Nationalists argued, at least they couldcontinue to govern one island of the country. In 1999, Taiwan’spresident announced that Taiwan would regard itself as a sov-ereign independent state, but the government of China viewedthat announcement as a dangerous departure from the long-standing arrangement between the two.

The question of who constituted the legitimate governmentof China plagued U.S. officials during the 1950s and 1960s.The United States had supported the Nationalists during thecivil war, so many Americans opposed acknowledging thatChina was firmly under the control of the Communists. Conse-quently, the United States continued to regard the Nationalistsas the official government of China until 1971, when U.S. pol-icy finally changed and the United Nations voted to transferChina’s seat from the Nationalists to the Communists. Taiwanis now the most populous state not in the United Nations.

Western Sahara (Sahrawi Republic)The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, also known as West-ern Sahara, is considered by most African countries as a sover-eign state. Morocco, however, claims the territory and to proveit has built a 2,700-kilometer wall around the territory to keepout rebels (Figure 8-2).

FIGURE 8-1 North and South Korea. A nighttime satellite image recorded by theU.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program shows the illumination ofelectric lights in South Korea, whereas North Korea has virtually no electric lights, ameasure of its poverty and limited economic activity.

Chapter 8: Political Geography 241

242 The Cultural Landscape

Spain controlled the territory on the con-tinent’s west coast between Morocco andMauritania until withdrawing in 1976. Anindependent Sahrawi Republic was declared bythe Polisario Front and recognized by mostAfrican countries, but Morocco and Maurita-nia annexed the northern and southern por-tions, respectively. Three years later Mauritaniawithdrew, and Morocco claimed the entireterritory.

Morocco controls most of the populated area,but the Polisario Front operates in the vast,sparsely inhabited deserts, especially the one-fifth of the territory that lies east of Morocco’swall. The United Nations has tried but failed toreach a resolution among the parties.

Polar Regions: Many ClaimsThe South polar region contains the only largelandmasses on Earth’s surface that are not partof a state. Several states claim portions of theregion, and some claims are overlapping andconflicting.

Several states, including Argentina, Aus-tralia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and

the United Kingdom, claim portions of Antarctica (Figure 8-3).Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom have made conflict-ing, overlapping claims. The United States, Russia, and a num-ber of other states do not recognize the claims of any countryto Antarctica. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959, provides alegal framework for managing Antarctica. States may establishresearch stations there for scientific investigations, but no mili-tary activities are permitted. The Treaty has been signed by 47 states.

As for the Arctic, the 1982 United Nations Convention onthe Law of the Sea permitted countries to submit claims insidethe Arctic Circle by 2009 (Figure 8-4). The Arctic region isthought to be rich in energy resources.

Varying Size of StatesThe land area occupied by the states of the world varies consid-erably. The largest state is Russia, which encompasses 17.1 mil-lion square kilometers (6.6 million square miles), or 11 percentof the world’s entire land area (Figure 8-5). Other states withmore than 5 million square kilometers (2 million squaremiles) include Canada, the United States, China, Brazil, andAustralia.

At the other extreme are about two dozen microstates,which are states with very small land areas. If Russia were thesize of this page, the a microstate would be the size of a singleletter. The smallest microstate in the United Nations—Monaco— encompasses only 1.5 square kilometers (0.6 squaremiles). See Figure 8-17 for an image of Monaco.

Other UN member states that are smaller than 1,000 squarekilometers include Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain,

FIGURE 8-2 Western Sahara. A French soldier attached to a United Nations missions patrols aportion of the sand walls built by Morocco during the 1980s to isolate Polisario Front rebels fightingfor independence.

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FIGURE 8-3 National claims to Antarctica. Antarctica is the only largelandmass in the world that is not part of a sovereign state. It comprises 14 millionsquare kilometers (5.4 million square miles), which makes it 50 percent largerthan Canada. Portions are claimed by Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, NewZealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom; claims by Argentina, Chile, and theUnited Kingdom are conflicting.

Chapter 8: Political Geography 243

Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Maldives,Malta, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, San Marino, São Tomé e Príncipe,the Seychelles, Singapore, Tonga, and Tuvalu. Many of themicrostates are islands, which explains both their small size andsovereignty.

Development of the State ConceptThe concept of dividing the world into a collection of inde-pendent states is recent. Prior to the 1800s, Earth’s surfacewas organized in other ways, such as city-states, empires, andtribes. Much of Earth’s surface consisted of unorganizedterritory.

Ancient and Medieval StatesThe development of states can be traced to the ancient MiddleEast, in an area known as the Fertile Crescent. The modernmovement to divide the world into states originated in Europe.

ANCIENT STATES. The ancient Fertile Crescent formed anarc between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea (Figure8-6). The eastern end, Mesopotamia, was centered in the valleyformed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in present-day Iraq.The Fertile Crescent then curved westward over the desert,turning southward to encompass the Mediterranean coastthrough present-day Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. The Nile Rivervalley of Egypt is sometimes regarded as an extension of theFertile Crescent. Situated at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, andAfrica, the Fertile Crescent was a center for land and seacommunications in ancient times.

The first states to evolve in Mesopotamia were known ascity-states. A city-state is a sovereign state that comprises atown and the surrounding countryside. Walls clearly delin-eated the boundaries of the city, and outside the walls the citycontrolled agricultural land to produce food for urban resi-dents. The countryside also provided the city with an outer lineof defense against attack by other city-states. Periodically, onecity or tribe in Mesopotamia would gain military dominanceover the others and form an empire. Mesopotamia was organ-ized into a succession of empires by the Sumerians, Assyrians,Babylonians, and Persians.

Meanwhile, the state of Egypt emerged as a separate empireto the west of the Fertile Crescent. Egypt controlled a long,narrow region along the banks of the Nile River, extendingfrom the Nile Delta at the Mediterranean Sea southward forseveral hundred kilometers. Egypt’s empire lasted from approx-imately 3000 B.C. until the fourth century B.C.

EARLY EUROPEAN STATES. Political unity in theancient world reached its height with the establishment of theRoman Empire, which controlled most of Europe, NorthAfrica, and Southwest Asia, from modern-day Spain to Iran andfrom Egypt to England. At its maximum extent, the empirecomprised 38 provinces, each using the same set of laws thathad been created in Rome. Massive walls helped the Romanarmy defend many of the empire’s frontiers.

The Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century after aseries of attacks by people living on its frontiers and becauseof internal disputes. The European portion of the RomanEmpire was fragmented into a large number of estates ownedby competing kings, dukes, barons, and other nobles. Begin-ning about the year 1100, a handful of powerful kings emergedas rulers over large numbers of these European estates. Theconsolidation of neighboring estates under the unified controlof a king formed the basis for the development of such mod-ern Western European states as England, France, and Spain.Much of central Europe, however—notably present-day Ger-many and Italy—remained fragmented into a large number ofestates that were not consolidated into states until the nine-teenth century.

ColoniesA colony is a territory that is legally tied to a sovereign staterather than being completely independent. In some cases, asovereign state runs only the colony’s military and foreign pol-icy. In others, it also controls the colony’s internal affairs.

DENMARK(GREENLAND)

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FIGURE 8-4 National claims to the Arctic. Under The Law of the Sea Treaty of1982 countries had until 2009 to submit territory claims inside the Arctic Circle.Some of these claims overlap.

244 The Cultural Landscape

• To establish relative power through the number of theircolonies.

The three motives could be summarized as God, gold, andglory.

The colonial era began in the 1400s, when European explor-ers sailed westward for Asia but encountered and settled in theWestern Hemisphere instead. Eventually, the European stateslost most of their Western Hemisphere colonies: Independence

ATLANTIC

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ST. KITTS & NEVIS (1983) ANTIGUA & BARBUDA (1981) DOMINICA (1978) ST. LUCIA (1979) ST. VINCENT & THE GRENADINES (1980) BARBADOS (1966) GRENADA (1974) TRINIDAD & TOBAGO (1962)

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Original members: 51

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FIGURE 8-5 U.N. members. When it was organized in 1945, the United Nations had only 51 members,including 49 sovereign states plus Byelorussia (now Belarus) and Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. Thenumber increased to 192 in 2006. The greatest increase in sovereign states has occurred in Africa. Only 4African states were original members of the United Nations—Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa—andonly 6 more joined during the 1950s. Beginning in 1960, however, a collection of independent states wascarved from most of the remainder of the region. In 1960 alone, 16 newly independent African states becameUN members. Creation of new sovereign states slowed during the 1980s. The breakup of the Soviet Unionand Yugoslavia stimulated the formation of more new states during the early 1990s, and several microstatesin the Pacific Ocean joined during the late 1990s.

COLONIALISM. European states came to control much ofthe world through colonialism, which is the effort by onecountry to establish settlements in a territory and to impose itspolitical, economic, and cultural principles on that territory(Figure 8-7). European states established colonies elsewhere inthe world for three basic reasons:

• To promote Christianity• To extract useful resources and to serve as captive markets

for their products

Chapter 8: Political Geography 245

was declared by the United States in 1776 and by most LatinAmerican states between 1800 and 1824. European statesthen turned their attention to Africa and Asia (Figure 8-8).This European colonization of Africa and Asia is oftentermed imperialism, which is control of territory alreadyoccupied and organized by an indigenous society, whereascolonialism is control of previously uninhabited or sparselyinhabited land.

The British planted colonies on every continent, includ-ing much of eastern and southern Africa, South Asia, theMiddle East, Australia, and Canada. With by far the largestcolonial empire, the British proclaimed that the “Sun neverset” on their empire. France had the second-largest over-seas territory, primarily in West Africa and Southeast Asia.The colonial practices of European states varied. Franceattempted to assimilate its colonies into French culture and

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Satellite imagery provided by GlobeXplorer.com

FIGURE 8-6 The Fertile Crescent. The crescent-shaped area of relatively fertileland was organized into a succession of empires starting several thousand years ago.

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246 The Cultural Landscape

educate an elite group to provide local administrative leader-ship. After independence, most of these leaders retained closeties with France. The British created different governmentstructures and policies for various territories of their empire.This decentralized approach helped to protect the diversecultures, local customs, and educational systems in theirextensive empire. British colonies generally made peacefultransitions to independence, although exceptions can befound in the Middle East, Southern Africa, and Ireland,where recent conflicts can be traced in part to the legacy ofBritish rule.

Most African and Asian colonies became independent afterWorld War II. Only 15 African and Asian states were membersof the United Nations when it was established in 1945, com-pared to 106 in 2010. The boundaries of the new states fre-quently coincide with former colonial provinces, although notalways.

THE FEW REMAINING COLONIES. At one time,colonies were widespread over Earth’s surface, but only ahandful remain. The U.S. Department of State lists 43 colonieswith indigenous populations (Figure 8-9).

FIGURE 8-7 European colonialism. European countries carved up much ofAfrica and Asia into colonies during the nineteenth century. The Britishassembled the largest collection. In this 1893 photograph, Britain’s QueenVictoria is writing at the desk while her Indian servant holds her walking stickand awaits orders.

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FIGURE 8-8 Colonial possessions, 1914. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, European states heldcolonies in much of the world, especially in Africa and Asia. Most of the countries in the Western Hemisphereat one time had been colonized by Europeans but gained their independence in the eighteenth or nineteenthcenturies.

Chapter 8: Political Geography 247

Most current colonies are islands in the Pacific Ocean orCaribbean Sea. The most populous is Puerto Rico, a Common-wealth of the United States, with 4 million residents on anisland of 8,870 square kilometers (3,500 square miles). PuertoRicans are citizens of the United States, but do not participatein U.S. elections, nor have a voting member of Congress.

One of the world’s least populated colonies is PitcairnIsland, a 47-square-kilometer (18-square-mile) possession ofthe United Kingdom. The island in the South Pacific was set-tled in 1790 by British mutineers from the ship Bounty, com-manded by Captain William Bligh. Its 48 islanders survive byselling fish, as well as postage stamps to collectors.

The State Department list does not include several inhabitedislands considered by other sources to be colonies, includingAustralia’s Lord Howe Island, Britain’s Ascension Island, andChile’s Easter Island. On the other hand, the State Departmentlist includes several entities that others do not classify ascolonies, including Greenland, Hong Kong, and Macao. Green-land regards the Queen of Denmark as its head of state. But ithas a high degree of autonomy and self-rule and makes evenforeign policy decisions independently of Denmark. HongKong and Macao, attached to the mainland of China, werecolonies of the United Kingdom and Portugal, respectively. TheBritish returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 and the Por-tuguese returned Macao to China 2 years later. These two areasare classified as Special Administrative Regions with autonomyfrom the rest of China in economic matters but not in foreignand military affairs.

KEY ISSUE 2

Why Do BoundariesBetween States CauseProblems?

■ Shapes of States■ Types of Boundaries■ Boundaries Inside States

A state is separated from its neighbors by a boundary, aninvisible line marking the extent of a state’s territory. Bound-aries completely surround an individual state to mark theouter limits of its territorial control and to give it a distinc-tive shape. Boundaries interest geographers because theprocess of selecting their location is frequently difficult. ■

Shapes of StatesThe shape of a state controls the length of its boundaries withother states. The shape therefore affects the potential for com-munication and conflict with neighbors. The shape also, as inthe outline of the United States or Canada, is part of its uniqueidentity. Beyond its value as a centripetal force, the shape of a

state can influence the ease or difficulty of internal administra-tion and can affect social unity.

Five Basic ShapesCountries have one of five basic shapes—compact, prorupted,elongated, fragmented, or perforated—examples of each can beseen in southern Africa (Figure 8-10). Each shape displays dis-tinctive characteristics and challenges.

COMPACT STATES: EFFICIENT. In a compact state,the distance from the center to any boundary does not varysignificantly. The ideal theoretical compact state would beshaped like a circle, with the capital at the center and with theshortest possible boundaries to defend.

Compactness can be a beneficial characteristic for smallerstates, because good communications can be more easily estab-lished to all regions, especially if the capital is located near thecenter. However, compactness does not necessarily meanpeacefulness, as compact states are just as likely as others toexperience civil wars and ethnic rivalries.

ELONGATED STATES: POTENTIAL ISOLATION. Ahandful of elongated states have a long and narrow shape.Examples include:

• Malawi, which measures about 850 kilometers (530 miles)north–south but only 100 kilometers (60 miles) east–west(refer to Figure 8–9).

• Chile, which stretches north–south for more than 4,000kilometers (2,500 miles) but rarely exceeds an east–westdistance of 150 kilometers (90 miles); Chile is wedgedbetween the Pacific Coast of South America and the ruggedAndes Mountains, which rise more than 6,700 meters(20,000 feet).

• Italy, which extends more than 1,100 kilometers (700 miles)from northwest to southeast but is only approximately 200kilometers (120 miles) wide in most places.

• Gambia, which extends along the banks of the GambiaRiver about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east–west but isonly about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north–south.

Elongated states may suffer from poor internal communica-tions. A region located at an extreme end of the elongationmight be isolated from the capital, which is usually placed nearthe center.

PRORUPTED STATES: ACCESS OR DISRUPTION.An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension isa prorupted state. Proruptions are created for two principalreasons:

1. To provide a state with access to a resource, such aswater. For example, in southern Africa, Congo has a500-kilometer (300-mile) proruption to the west alongthe Zaire (Congo) River. The Belgians created the prorup-tion to give their colony access to the Atlantic.

2. To separate two states that otherwise would share aboundary. For example, in southern Africa, Namibiahas a 500-kilometer (300-mile) proruption to the east