Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Tensions over turf, like debt and taxes, never seem to go away. For starters, some ethnic group is al-
ways clamoring for independence or wanting to draw or re-draw boundaries in a certain part of the
world. Without taking sides in such matters, let me simply propose a singular reason for much of this
contentiousness. Namely, the people who drew most of today's international boundaries came from
somewhere else, and they often gave little or no thought to the possible long-term consequences to
the native population.
Typecasting Boundary Lines
Insight into the nature and consequences of boundary making is provided by Figure 14-2. Assume it
is a map from more than a hundred years ago that shows the boundaries of five ethnic groups labeled
A-F, as well as a river and a line of longitude. Also assume that you are an official who, in the lan-
guage of the previous paragraph, comes from somewhere else, and must decide where to place an
international boundary within the area shown in Figure 14-2. Three options are available, and they
correspond to the features just mentioned. They are:
The Ethnic Option:
The homelands of five ethnic groups, indicated by the letters A-F in
Figure 14-2, occupy the area in question. One option is to divide the area on the basis of the
ethnic boundaries highlighted on the map.
The Landform Option:
A fairly large river flows through the area. A line running down
its middle could be used as the border.
The Graticule Option:
If you read Chapter 3, then you may recall that
graticule
refers to
Earth's grid of latitude and longitude. A line of longitude runs through the region. This line
potentially could serve as the international boundary.
I didn't simply dream up these possibilities. Instead, the three options represent the three kinds of
borders that political geographers most commonly identify. Each type is discussed in greater detail in
the following sections.
Ethnic boundaries
This one's a no-brainer. Ethnic boundaries separate the homelands of neighboring ethnic
groups. They are also probably the oldest kind of boundary there is. Viewed against the broad
