1. Formation of Boundaries and Political Divisions
World Geography Political Geography
Formation of Boundaries and Political Divisions
Berlin Wall
Physical and Human Processes
llhammon
Political Geography
llhammon Fall 2010

2. Political Regions
Governments establish clear boundaries so that they may assert their authority.
This area is known as a political region
or political unit.
Boundaries between countries are
known as borders.
Countries have several levels of government (e.g. cities, counties, or states (provinces) ).
Overlapping can occur within these units with authority.
An area may belong to more than one political region as it can belong more than one physical/cultural region.
Boundaries between states can be the product of historical circumstances or political agreements.
•A national government is sovereign, or supreme, within its own borders.

3. TYPES OF BOUNDARIES •GEOMETRIC •PHYSICAL/POLITICAL •CULTURAL/POLITICAL
Great Wall of China

4. GEOMETRIC Straight line or curved boundaries
Totally unrelated to any aspects of the cultural or physical landscape.
May follow latitude/longitude lines
 Ex: African nations, borders between US and Canada to the west of the Great Lakes

5. PHYSICAL-POLITICAL
 Conform to physiographic features in the landscape such as rivers or mountain ranges
 Ex: Rio Grande, Pyrenees (shown – b/t Spain and France); Great Lakes of Africa and N. America; Himalaya in South Asia

6. CULTURAL-POLITICAL
Mark breaks in the human landscape
Ex: Israel/Egypt (shown); Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan; new borders of SE Europe/Balkans; Greek/Turk division in Cyprus (shown)