world regional geography exam 2

Mountain chain used to delimit eastern boundary of Europe

Ural mountains

Microstate

Very small sovereign state in terms of land area

examples of microstates

Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein

Monaco specialization

Gambling, tourism, banking

Andorra specialization

Tourism attractions include duty-free shopping and summer & winter resorts

Liechtenstein specilazation

Several multinational corporation headquarters

Vatican City specilazation

Pope is the head of this  . Religious tourism

North Atlantic Drift

•        ocean current fed by the warm Gulf Stream current reaches coastal areas of Europe

What climate type dominates the peninsulas and coastal areas in Western and Northern Europe?

Marine West Coast

Fjords

 a deep sea U-shaped inlet carved by glaciers (Iceland, Norway, UK)

Physical landscape region with highest elevation (highest mountains on average) in Europe

The Alps

Physical landscape region with the densest population and most productive agriculture

North European lowland/plain

Polder

•        is land reclaimed from the sea or body of water. Water has been drained from this land using canals, hydraulic water pumps, dikes, and windmills; considred part of the natural landscape

Venice

City is sinking because of pumping water from aquifer and extracting methane gas

Site

is physical characteristics of a place.

•        Ex. Natural harbor, soil quality, minerals, climate, elevation, etc.

Situation

accessibility/connectivity to places

•        Ex. Roads, railroads, and ports are important for transporting goods

primate city

•        A city that is always disproportionately large and most expressive of national culture

•        Ex. London, Paris, Vienna

Conurbation

•        The fusion or 2 or more major urban areas, linked by transportation routes

•        Ex. Rhine-Ruhr (Germany)

Entrepôt

Any port city, where break-of-bulk occurs Ex. Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc.

Marshall Plan

Under Truman’s administration, this plan provided $13 billion in aid to rebuild Europe’s infrastructure (including West Germany, Turkey, Cyprus, & microstates) from 1947-1952

Significance: In Europe, only Western Europe benefited from the Marshall Plan since Soviet Union declined aid and coerced  Eastern European countries to reject aid.

 

Nation-state

•        A nation of people have a State or country of their own

examples of a nation state

Iceland and Denmark

Germanic languages

•        English, Dutch, German

Slavic languages

•        Polish, Czech, Latvian, Russian

Romance languages

•        Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese

Examples of Non-Indo European languages

Basque, Hungarian, Estonian

Centripetal force

•        tends to bind the state together

Centrifugal force

•        divides a state through internal conflicts such as religious conflict, racial strife, linguistic differences, immigration tension, and land disputes. 

Devolution

  A power transfer from Central government to a regional government

Immigration/refugees in Europe where are they coming from?

Middle East and North Africa region

Northern Europe & N. & Central Swath of Germany

Protestant

•        Southern, Central & Ireland Europe

vatholic

Southeastern Europe

Easten Orthodox

Islam majority

•        Albania, Kosovo, and areas in Bosnia & Hert.

Supranationalism

3 or more states cooperating in terms of political, economic, cultural, and/or military activities to promote shared objectives

exampels of supernationalism in Europe

•        Trade agreements: Benelux

•        EU- and affiliated agreements (Schengen)

NATO/Warsaw Pact