Transcript lesson 2 - territorial morphology

Topic: Spatial Characteristics of States
(Territorial Morphology)
• Aim: In what ways can
the shapes of states
influence them?
• Do Now: In what ways
does the shape of your
house influence how
you live?
The State of Shapes Activity:
• For each of the following countries, try to
determine what are the relative advantages
and disadvantages that might be caused by
the shape of the country, and nothing
more.
Uruguay, Zimbabwe, Poland, Belgium,
Rwanda
Shape: Compact
• Distance from the center to any boundary
does not vary significantly
• Most ideal and efficient form is a circle
with a capital in the center, and the
shortest possible boundaries to defend
• Uruguay, Zimbabwe, Poland, Kenya,
Rwanda
Namibia, Oklahoma (U.S. State),
Thailand, Afghanistan
Shape: Prorupt (aka - protruded or
panhandled):
• Nearly compact but posses one or more narrow
extensions of territory which can be either natural or
artificial
• Proruptions can be built to gain access to resources (i.e. Belgians gaining access to Atlantic Ocean through Congo),
or to separate areas from one another (i.e. - British
proruption in Afghanistan preventing Russia from sharing
a border with Pakistan)
Norway, Chile, Vietnam, Italy, Gambia:
Shape: Elongated
• Long and narrow shape
• Distance from the capital is greater
• A large amount of diversity of climate,
resources, and cultures
• National cohesion difficult - suffer from poor
internal communications
South Africa & Lesotho (pronounced li-soo-too )/
Rome & Vatican City/ Senegal & Gambia
Shape - Perforated
• State that completely surrounds another one is a
perforated state.
• The surrounded state (Lesotho, e.g.) thus
depends heavily on the state surrounding it for
imports/exports
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuiqGCfXuA&list=UU2C_jShtL725hvbm1arSV9w
Video - Countries Inside Countries: Bizarre Borders part 1
(YouTube - 2 minutes)
Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Denmark,
Philippines
Shape: Fragmented, or
archipelagic
• Several discontinuous pieces of territory - 2 types
1. Fragmented states separated by water - (e.g. island
nations such as Indonesia, 13,677 islands, or Malaysia)
2. Fragmented states separated by an intervening state - (e.g.
Angola divided by Congo proruption or Russian territory
of Kaliningrad separated by Lithuania and Belarus)
• Fragmentation weakens communication, fragments
culture, and makes centralized control difficult
• Fragmentation caused either by water or by another state
(i.e. - Alaska and U.S. separated by Canada)
Landlocked Countries
• Landlocked states lack a direct outlet to the seas because they
are surrounded by other countries on all sides. In other words
they have no coastline. There are over 40 landlocked states in
the world
• Africa & Europe have the most landlocked states than any
continents (15 each).
• Asia has 12 including Mongolia & Nepal are landlocked with
rough terrain, great distances and limited communication,
Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia & Georgia.
• South America (2) -Bolivia and Paraguay
• Europe -Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Moldova, Belarus and Bosnia
• North America, Australia, and Antarctica have no
landlocked states