Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Country
In strict usage, this is a geographic term signifying the physical territory of one nation, but
it is often used in the extended sense of
nation
, regardless of whether it is dependent or independent. So
while it is typical to ask “What country do you come from?” what we really mean is “What is your nation-
ality?”
Coup d'état
(sometimes just plain
coup
) This French phrase translates as a “stroke of the state,” and
means the sudden violent overthrow of a government. If it's not so violent, it's often called a “bloodless”
coup. But that is a very relative term, depending on whose ox has been gored and whose blood has been
spilled.
Imperialism
For years, Communists around the world derided Americans as “imperialists.” And when
President Ronald Reagan wanted to say exactly what he thought of the Soviet Union, he minced no words,
calling it the “Evil Empire.”
An overused and casually tossed term of insult,
imperialism
means the acquisition or control of territory
by a state in order to exploit the resources of that territory. The reason is usually simple: the controlling
nation exploits the raw materials of a colony or territory, produces finished goods, and then sells them at
a great profit, often back to the colony from which the materials came. Perhaps the greatest historical ex-
ample of the imperial system was Great Britain in India, wherein a small imperial nation controlled a vast
colony. Cotton grown in India was shipped back to England, where it was converted to cloth in the mills
of Manchester, sewn into clothing, and then shipped back to India for sale. The cost of the finished goods
being much higher than the raw material, England always profited from this trade.
The Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) understood this relationship perfectly and
used it to formulate a simple but effective protest. He implored Indians to shun foreign-made cloth and be-
gin wearing “homespun,” or clothing that they had made themselves. This elementary and nonviolent tac-
tic proved to be both a symbolic gesture of independence and an enormous economic blow to the British. It
was one of the most effective of the many tools Gandhi used in his peaceful quest for Indian independence,
which was finally granted in 1947.
Nation
Generally,
nation
denotes a relatively large group of people who want to be organized under a
single, usually independent, government. This group's members are often closely associated by common
cultural characteristics—that is, they share common origins, history, and frequently language, as well as
customs, values, and aspirations. Conscious of their own sense of nationality, such a group wishes to re-
main free from outside political domination.
Nation-states
, such as those that comprise the membership of the UN, can be variously described as
republics, principalities, kingdoms, or commonwealths.
But there is an alternative definition of
nation
—a federation or tribe. This is true when referring, for
instance, to groups of North American Indians, such as the Cherokee or Sioux nations.
There are also nations without
states.
The 21 million Kurds who are spread out over large parts of Tur-
key, Iraq, and Iran, and spill into Syria and the former Soviet Republic of Armenia, constitute the world's
largest nation without a territory to call their own state. Suppressed by the Turkish government and gassed
by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein without any protest from Western nations, the Kurds remain a
volatile factor in an already tense part of the globe. With an ancient history of tribal conflicts and lacking a
single Kurdish language, the Kurds have been internally divided by their own history and their geography.
Mountains within the area known as Kurdistan limit the ability of the Kurds to coalesce in a single nation-
alist movement.
Kingdom
Lands ruled by kings somehow seem like vestiges of fairy-tale times. But there are still quite
a few nations that are led by kings, either in name or in fact. The list of existing kingdoms includes Belgi-
um, Bhutan, Denmark, Thailand, Jordan, Lesotho, Morocco, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Ara-
bia, Spain, Sweden, Swaziland, Tonga, and, of course, the United Kingdom, even though the current mon-
