Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Groups of countries
It is important to note some major differences between the various LDCS. A
number of different attempts have been made to classify these, but a simple
geographical split encompasses much of the variation (
Table 7.1
). If we
concentrate on the former Third World, the three areas of interest are southeast
and south Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These can be assembled into four
major groupings of countries. The east Asian newly industrialized countries
(NICS) merit a group on their own, because they have so obviously moved away
from the other countries in southeast Asia.
Evidently there is some overlap between the four groupings above, but they
have a clear overall distinction. Latin America is characterized by GNP per
capita levels of between roughly $1000 and $7000 per annum, a modest
contribution of agriculture to this GNP despite their large land areas, high levels
of urbanization (over 60 per cent commonly), and moderate to high levels of
population increase, although given their large land reserves, this is not too
critical at the moment. Sub-Saharan Africa has annual per capita GNP levels
running from about $100 to $800. Of this, a third to a half is generated through
agriculture, in countries that are still dominantly rural rather than urban.
Population growth rates are excessively high. In southeast Asia, there are two
groups identified: the LDCS and the NICS. Of these, the LDCS are comparable
to the African countries, with very low GNP, under $500 typically, and up to
half coming from agriculture, with low levels of urbanization and rapid
population growth. The NICS, however, have a wide range of values for GNP,
for contributions from agriculture, for urbanization and for population growth.
Amongst these countries, there appears to be a rapid diffusion process going on;
its centre is the dynamo of Japan, which in retrospect can be identified as the
first NIC, its economic development starting before the Second World War and
coming to fruition in the post-war era.
Failures and successes
Some idea of the nature of the development process and policies in the LDCS
can be obtained from examples. Let us take first the examples of Argentina and
India.
Argentina
This country may be used to exemplify a “Latin American type”, although there
are obvious differences from country to country within that world region. It is of
very large areal size, with 2.8 million km
2
of territory, but a very low density of
population over most of the country, as the total population is only 33.5 million.
Even this human/land ratio is illusory, however, since a third of the population,
