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Locational (Positional) Boundary Dispute

A disagreement about the actual location of a boundary.

Median Line Principle

An approach to dividing and creating boundaries at the mid-point between two places.

Multinational Organizations

An organization that owns or controls production of goods or services in one or more countries other than their home country.

Natural (Physical) Boundary

A boundary line based based on recognizable physiographic features, such as mountains or rivers.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

An agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico designed to remove tariff barriers between the three countries.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after World War II to strengthen international ties between member states.

Operational (Functional) Boundary Dispute

A disagreement between neighboring states over policies to be applied to their common border.

Organic Theory

Theory that a country behaves like an organism-to survive, a state requires nourishment, or territory, to gain political power.

Reapportionment

The process and outcome of a reallocation of electoral seats to defined territories, such as congressional seats to states of the United States.

Redistricting

The drawing of a new electoral district boundary lines in response to population changes.

Relic Boundary

A former boundary line that is still discernible and marked by some cultural landscape feature.

Rimland Theory

Theory that the domination of the coastal fringes of Eurasia would provide the base for world conquest.

Satellite State

A country or nation that was formally independent, but is now politically and economically influenced by another country.

Stateless Nation

A group of people with a common culture occupying a particular territory that does not operate as an independent political unit with a defined, permanently populated territory and has no sovereign control over its internal and foreign affairs.

Subsequent Boundary

A political boundary that developed in consideration of sociocultural characteristics.

Superimposed Boundary

A boundary line placed over an area by an external force; often ignores an existing cultural pattern.

UNCOLS (UN Convention on the Law of the Sea)

A code of maritime law approved by the United Nations in 1982 that authorizes, among other provisions, territorial waters extending 12 nautical miles (22km) from shore and 200-nautical-mile-wide (370-km-wide) exclusive economic zones.

Unitary State

A sovereign state governed as a single entity. The central government is supreme, and the administrative divisions exercise only powers that the central government has delegated to them.

Allocational (Resource) Boundary Dispute

A boundary dispute that involves conflicting claims to the natural resources of a border region.

Anocracy

A country that is not fully democratic or fully autocratic, but rather displays a mix of the two types.

Antecedent Boundary

A boundary that existed before the cultural landscape emerged and stayed in place while people moved in to occupy the surrounding area.

Buffer State

A relatively small country sandwiched between two larger powers. The existence of buffer states may help to prevent dangerous conflicts between powerful countries.

City-state

A city that with its surrounding territory forms an independent state.

Cold War

A state of political hostility between countries (Russia and United States) characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular.

Colonialism

The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

Colony

A country or area under the full or partial political control of another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by settlers from that country.

Confederal State

A political system in which power is vested exclusively or predominantly with subnational governments.

Cultural (Ethnographic) Boundary

Boundaries that mark breaks in the human landscape based on differences in culture.

Decolonization

The collapse of colonial empires. Between 1947 and 1962, practically all former colonies in Asia and Africa gained independence.

Definitional Boundary Dispute

Conflict over the language of the border agreement in a treaty or boundary contract.

Democracy

A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)

The sea zone extending 200 nautical miles from the coast over which a state has special rights as to the exploration and use of marine resources.

Federal State

A country where power is shared between the national government and the governments of the various states.

Forward Capital

A symbolically relocated capital city usually because of either economic or strategic reasons.

Frontier

A zone where no state exercises complete political control.

Geometric Boundary

Political boundaries that are defined and delimited by straight lines.

Geopolitics

The study of relations among geography, states, and world powers.

Gerrymandering

Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power.

Heartland Theory

Hypothesis proposed by Halford MacKinder that held that any political power based in the heart of Eurasia could gain enough strength to eventually dominate the world.

Imperialism

A policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

Landlocked State

A state that is completely surrounded by the land of other states, which gives it a disadvantage in terms of accessibility to and from international trade routes.