GEOG 1HA3 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Canada, China, French Language
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
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GEOG 1HA3
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Outline
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• Introduction
• Political Geography: What is it?
• Key Concepts
• Nation, State, Territories, Sovereign States, etc.
• Rise of the Modern Sovereign State
• Exploration, Colonialism, and Independence
• Summary/Conclusion
• Readings: Chapter 9
Ch9-Political Issues - Nationalism - Quebec - From Knox
Introduction
• Political units: the basic division of the world
• Closely related to language, religion, etc.
• Q. Why does the political map of the world look like this? Countries are political units, elements of
culture. Strong connection to political units and culture. It reflects the current cultural differences as
well as historical influences such as colonialism and globalization.
• Q. How & why does this map change over time?
• Q. What are the geographical aspects of politics? What political geographers are interested in
Political Geography
• Political Geography: the study of the geographical manifestation of political phenomena especially
the effects that states have on the individual and group behaviours
• Areas of interest/concern:
• The relationships between states this country and another and how they get along (geopolitics)
• The relationship between states & former colonies England or vice versa colonies and colonizers
• How and why states are organized into regional groupings, both formally and informally European
union
• The forces of conflict between political entities
• The function, demarcation and enforcement of territorial boundaries
• The study of election results (electorial geography)
Key Concepts: Nation
• Most cultural groups see themselves as having a national identity – i.e. they are a Nation
• Nation: a group of people sharing a common culture and an emotional attachment to some territory
• Nations are cultural entities
• Nation = a cohesive/singular cultural group + attachment to territory
• Is Canada a nation? Do we have a singular cultural group
• There is at least 2; or dozens (English, French, First Nations)
Key Concepts: Nationalism
• Nationalism: an expression of belonging to a nation (emotional attachment to territory and nation)
• Positive: flag, national anthem, national pride, practices, holidays, foods
• Negative: extreme expressions of nationalism where people believe that a country should be home to a specific
nation only (KKK). An exclusive view
• e.g. Norwegian massacre (2011) a protest against muslim population, political statement that
Norway should be exclusively for Europeans, anti-muslim, 80 people killed, cleans the population
Key Concepts: State & Territory
• In addition to cultural groups, people are also divided into political units
• State: a political unit associated with an area with defined (and generally recognized)
boundaries
• Nation state, sovereign state, multinational state (can take many forms)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Territory: the geographic area (spatial extent) of states; usually with defined and
acknowledged boundaries
• Clearly defined boundaries
• Territory is a spatial/geographical entity
• Sometimes they are contested
• Area in northern india, claimed by several countries (Kashmir).
Key Concepts: State & Territory
Example of contested boundaries of territories
Key Concepts: Country/Sovereign State
• Country (or Sovereign State): a political construct (entity) whereby a population is governed by a
centralized government that has supreme and independent authority/control over a geographic area
(territory)
• Examples: china, India, Pakistan, Nepal
• 2015: 206 countries
• Examples … Canada
Key Concepts: Country/Sovereign State
• Select countries with disputed sovereignty:
• North Korea used to be one country, then civil war
• South Korea and japan and allies didn’t acknowledge North Korea (vice versa with North Korea
and China)
• Israel
• Palestine (even UN)
• Taiwan (independent from china, but china doesn’t think so)
• Cyprus Greek Cyprus (contested from either path) have buffer zone
• Northern Cyprus Turkish Cyprus
Key Concepts: Nation-State
• When a state and a nation coincide geographically
• Nation-state: a political unit that contains one principal national group and an associated territory – a
particular form of country/sovereign state
• Nation-state = state (politics) + nation (culture) + territory (geography)
• Nation-states: countries where the vast majority of the population belongs to a single cultural
group (often ethnic)
• Examples: Albania, Bangladesh, Egypt, japan
• Most countries are not nation states, most are multinational
The Rise of the Modern Sovereign State
• Sovereign states are ubiquitous
1. Today, souvereign states are ubiquitous, it’s everywhere, only obvious away
2. Emergence of sovereign states
• Important to note:
1. Many sovereign states are relatively fluid (i.e. many contain two or more nations)
multinational, challenging, holding many nations, political instability
• Sometimes lead to conflict and political instability, ever changing
• i.e. US and Switzerland
2. Sovereign states are relatively recent last 300 years (since the 18th century)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Introduction: political geography: what is it, key concepts, nation, state, territories, sovereign states, etc, rise of the modern sovereign state, exploration, colonialism, and independence, summary/conclusion, readings: chapter 9. Ch9-political issues - nationalism - quebec - from knox. Introduction: political units: the basic division of the world, closely related to language, religion, etc, q. It reflects the current cultural differences as well as historical influences such as colonialism and globalization: q. How & why does this map change over time: q. Political geography: political geography: the study of the geographical manifestation of political phenomena especially the effects that states have on the individual and group behaviours, areas of interest/concern: The relationships between states this country and another and how they get along (geopolitics: how and why states are organized into regional groupings, both formally and informally european. The relationship between states & former colonies england or vice versa colonies and colonizers union. The function, demarcation and enforcement of territorial boundaries.
