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
Population size by countries: China(1.2 billion) > India(1 billion)…
Population density by world regions: East Asia > South Asia…
Factors contributing to high density: irrigation, economic activities clustered around cities

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
Population pyramids: show the gender and percentage of the population in specific age cohorts; Diagrammatic representation of the age and sex structure of population. The vertical axis represents age groups – with males on the left and females on the right – and the horizontal axis indicates percentage distribution for each sex. Shows demographic trends, In developing countries, common to have broader base indicating higher fertility; In developed countries, common to have narrower base showing decline in birth rates

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
Stage2: decline in death rates <- public health
Stage3: decline in birth rates <- industrialization, urbanization

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
Generally speaking, high urbanization rate is correlated with high degree of industrialization because economic activities are clustered around urban centers. It is predicted that the world will be 60 percent urbanized by the year 2025.

13. Cities over 10 million Rapid growth in the developing world
Slow growth in the developed world
The greatest population gains are expected in the large cities of the developing world, such as Lagos, Nigeria; Karachi, Pakistan; and Bombay (Mumbai). In contrast, large cities in the developed world are predicted to grow slowly over the next decades (eg. Tokyo)

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
Urban primacy: eg. Mexico City, Bangkok, Cairo
Overurbanization: eg. Calcutta
Squatter settlement: eg. New Delhi

15. Example of squatter settlements
Because of the massive migration of people to world cities, adequate housing for the rapidly growing population becomes a daunting problem. Picture shows New Delhi

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
In the contemporary world, multiple cultural association is quite common
Degree of coherence gets diluted as the scale gets bigger

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 Cultural nationalism
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
Linguists group languages into language families based on the common ancestral speech (eg. Indo-European family)
Language families are subdivided into language branches and groups (subfamilies) based on similar sounds, words, and grammar (eg. English and German)
Dialects: individual languages in distinct forms associated with specific regions (eg. Mandarin & Cantonese; English in Britain, North America, Australia)
Based on language families

22. World Religions Universalizing religions Ethnic 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: million – Asia; Rather mixed

24. Geopolitical framework

25. Geopolitics
Describes the link between geography and political activity

26. State & Nation State Nation
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
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. For example, the Kurdish people of Southwest Asia traditionally occupy a large cultural territory that is currently in four different political states: Turkey, Iraq, Syria,
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 Geometric 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
When the twentieth century began central Europe was dominated by the German, Austro-Hungarian (or Hapsburg), and Russian empires. Following World War I, these empires were largely replaced by a mosaic of nation-states.
After WWI, empires were largely replaced by nation-states.

33. Example of geometric boundaries
This map shows the lack of congruence between ethnic group territory and modern political borders; this often results in civil war, and border wars.
The lack of congruence between ethnic boundaries and political borders often results in civil war

34. Colonialism & Decolonialization
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
Within most world regions, there are centers of economic activity where manufacturing and business are clustered. Often these are the more prosperous and most urbanized areas within the region. Outlying areas within the region may lie in the shadow of these robust economic core areas, suffering from the consequences of underdevelopment. This economic diversity, both on a global scale and within regions (and even within states), has given rise to the concept of core-periphery interactions. One assumption of this model is that economic cores prosper only by exploiting poorer periphery territories.

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
GNI per 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
PPP: Purchasing Power Parity

42. GNI per capita at MER GNI per capital at PPP
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
Life expectancy: reflects availability of health services, nutrition, prevalence of disease, accident rates, sanitation, and homicide rates
Under age 5 mortality: reflects food availability, health services, and public sanitation

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”