Political boundaries and governments

The borders between cultures usually, but not always, coincide with political boundaries between countries. To illustrate, we can speak of the Japanese culture, the Mexican culture, and the French culture. Today political boundaries divide the world into more than 160 different nations.

Political boundaries. They usually follow physical landforms on the earth. The high Andes Mountains, for example, divide Peru from Brazil and Chile from Argentina. The Rhine River forms part of the border between France and Germany. Other boundaries, however, do not follow physical features. The long border between Canada and the western United States, drawn along the 49° N latitude line, cuts across many different landforms.

Many political boundaries separate groups of people with different cultures. The border between Spain and France, for example, separates the Spanish people, with their distinctive culture and language, from the French people, who have their own traditions. In other cases, however, the boundaries are arbitrary lines that include several different, and often opposing, groups. Many boundaries in Africa, for example, were drawn by Europeans, who ruled much of that part of the, world until the mid-20th century. Such countries often have serious difficulties because so many different groups are within their borders.

Size and shape. Some countries span (extend across) continents and cover several different time zones. Others are so tiny that a person can walk across them in a single day. Geographers call such small countries microstates. Years ago size was a measure of a country s pride. Wars were fought to acquire more land and to add to a country s prestige. However, big does not always mean better. Large countries are more likely to have a large workforce and an adequate supply of natural resources. Yet they face potential problems concerning food supplies, defense, transportation, communication, and political unity.

Countries vary not only in size but also in shape. Political geographers often classify nations according to their shape, or spatial form. Two of the most common classifications they use are compact nations and fragmented nations. Compact are nations that have generally round or rectangular shapes and land areas not separated by large bodies of water or by the territory of other countries. In a compact nation all points on the country s borders lie about the same distance from the geographic center of the country. This makes communication and transportation easier. Examples of compact nations include Poland, Uruguay, and Kenya.

Fragmented are nations that have land areas that are geographically separated from other parts of the country. New Zealand, which occupies several islands in the South Pacific, is one example of a fragmented nation. Other examples include Italy, Indonesia, and Japan. Alaska and Hawaii, which are geographically separated from the rest of the United States, make it a fragmented nation. Fragmented shapes make communication and transportation more difficult than in compact nations. In fact, some fragmented nations have had such serious breakdowns in communication that they eventually divided into two or more countries. East and West Pakistan, for example, originally were part of the same country. Communication and government administration were difficult because the two parts of the country were thousands of miles apart, separated by India. Finally, in 1971 the people of East Pakistan revolted and formed their own nation — Bangladesh.