Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
response to issues in the future. Small wonder, then, that
many individuals who have little general understanding of
geography at least appreciate the impo
Many borders were established on the world map
before the extent or signifi cance of subsoil resources was
known. As a result, coal seams and aquifers cross boundar-
ies, and oil and gas reserves are split between states. Europe's
coal reserves, for example, extend from Belgium underneath
the Netherlands and on into the Ruhr area of Germany.
Soon after mining began in the mid-nineteenth century,
these three neighbors began to accuse each other of mining
coal that did not lie directly below their own national ter-
ritories. The underground surveys available at the time were
too inaccurate to pinpoint the ownership of each coal seam.
During the 1950s-1960s, Germany and the Neth-
erlands argued over a gas reserve that lies in the subsoil
across their boundary. The Germans claimed that the
Dutch were withdrawing so much natural gas that the gas
was fl owing from beneath German land to the Dutch side
of the boundary. The Germans wanted compensation for
the gas they felt they lost. A major issue between Iraq and
Kuwait, which in part led to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in
1990, was the oil in the Rumaylah reserve that lies under-
neath the desert and crosses the border between the two
states. The Iraqis asserted that the Kuwaitis were drilling
too many wells and draining the reserve too quickly; they
also alleged that the Kuwaitis were drilling oblique bore-
holes to penetrate the vertical plane extending downward
along the boundary. At the time the Iraq-Kuwait bound-
ary was established, however, no one knew that this giant
oil reserve lay in the subsoil or that it would contribute to
an international crisis (Fig. 8.19).
Above the ground, too, the interpretation of bound-
aries as vertical planes has serious implications. A state's
“airspace” is defi ned by the atmosphere above its land
area as marked by its boundaries, as well as by what lies
beyond, at higher altitudes. But how high does the airspace
rtance of its elec-
toral geography component.
Choose an example of a devolutionary movement and
consider which geographic factors favor, or work against,
greater autonomy (self-governance) for the region. Would
granting the region autonomy strengthen or weaken the
state in which the region is currently situated?
HOW ARE BOUNDARIES ESTABLISHED, AND
WHY DO BOUNDARY DISPUTES OCCUR?
The territories of individual states are separated by
international boundaries, often referred to as borders.
Boundaries may appear on maps as straight lines or may
twist and turn to conform to the bends of rivers and the
curves of hills and valleys. But a boundary is more than
a line, far more than a fence or wall on the ground. A
boundary
between states is actually a vertical plane that
cuts through the rocks below (called the subsoil) and the
airspace above, dividing one state from another (Fig.
8.18). Only where the vertical plane intersects the Earth's
surface (on land or at sea) does it form the line we see on
the ground.
Figure 8.18
The Vertical Plane of a Political
Boundary.
© E. H. Fouberg, A. B. Murphy,
H. J. de Blij, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
