APHUG: Chapter 9

Political Geography

The branch of geography that deals with the boundaries and policies of states.

State

A group of people in a specific area with political organization.

Sovereignty

The right to govern their own people

Nations

A group of people with a shared language and culture

Nation-State

A state determined by the shared identity of the people within it.

Multi-State Nation

A nation that lives across multiple states.

Irredentism

A country laying claim to territory that formerly belonged to it.

Multinational state

A state in which multiple nations live within.

Autonomous

Functioning by itself.

Semi-Autonomous

Functioning by itself, with assistance from a larger state

Stateless Nation

A nation that does not belong to any particular state.

Territoriality

An attempt to lay control to a certain area by a certain group of people.

Colonialism

The process of imposing values and belief systems from the conquering people upon the people that already live there.

Neo-Colonialism

The process of holding social, economic, and political influence in an area, especially former dependents

Choke Point

A particularly strategic and small point of which trade is important.

Shatterbelts

Regions of cultural diversity and political instability.

Self-Determination

The right to decide who is governing them.

Imperialism

Extending a country's power through foreign influence or military control.

Devolution

The movement of power from a central government to smaller regional governments.

Defining

Using treaties to establish a boundary between two countries through physical markers or longitude and latitude.

Delimit

Drawing the lines of a boundary on a map.

Demarcated

Creating physical boundaries on land

Administer

How borders are maintained and how people and goods cross them.

Antecedent Boundaries

Boundaries created before people have settled.

Subsequent Boundaries

Boundaries created after people were settled.

Consequent Boundaries

Boundaries created as a result of the patterns of how people have settled.

Superimposed

Boundaries that were not created in regard to nations and ethnicities.

Geometric Boundaries

Boundaries created using straight lines or according to mathematical concepts.

Relics

Boundaries that used to be important but don't matter anymore.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Anything two hundred miles off the coast line of any country can be used as an exclusive economic zone, under the condition that the environment of the sea is maintained and free passage is granted to innocent ships.

Exclusive Economic Zone

An area where the sovereign state has exclusive rights for research and exploitation.