Preliminaries
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Return map tests
Geography Conference
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Field trip
Africa question
North Africa/Southwest Asia
Frequency Distribution - Map Test 2
18
16
Frequency
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Mark out of 20
WDCAG – March 11-13, 2005
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The Western Division of the Canadian
Association of Geographers.
Annual conference is in Lethbridge.
For details see the Geography website
(http://www.uleth.ca/fas/geo).
Reduced rates for students ($30).
Includes:
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Conference registration, Banquet, Field trips (nominal
fee), Curling Funspiel, Free entrance to Friday night
social.
Friday Night Social.
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Held at the Zoo.
Live Band (Southern Flyer playing from 8 pmmidnight).
Pizza by the slice.
Lots of Geographers from Western Canada
(Manitoba to BC).
Come and meet other students and professors.
You don’t have to register for the conference to
come and join us ($5/cover).
Africa Question: Why was disease such a
problem? (by contrast with Latin America)
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Colonial era
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Latin America’s indigenous people decimated by
European diseases: influenza and small pox
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Facilitating conquest, colonization, settlement
Most European settlement at higher elevations, more temperate
climate
Low population density in coastal/tropical regions
Africa – tropical environment
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Half of all Europeans who remained on African coastline died
within one year
Higher elevations less high, less accessible
Large indigenous population as vectors
Africa Question: Why is disease
such a problem?
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Contemporary era
High mortality, low life expectancy
Population is vulnerable
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Rapid growth, limited food production, malnutrition
Debilitating effect of endemic disease fostered by
tropical environment
Poor health care facilities and care
Considerations not hard answers!
African Transition Zone
NORTH AFRICA &
SOUTHWEST ASIA
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Oil
Regions of North Africa/Southwest
Asia
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Mahgreb & Libya
Egypt
Iraq
Turkey
Cyprus
Israel
Defining the Realm
THE IMPACT OF OIL
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65% of known reserves
High incomes
Modernization
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Industrialization
Intra-realm migration
Inter-realm migration
Regional disparities
Foreign investment
Dubai, UAE. Dhows & skyscrapers
REGIONS OF THE REALM
Maghreb
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The Maghreb - Atlas mountains
Orographic rainfall
Coastal population
Mediterranean agriculture exports to Europe
Saharan interior
Libya: The Maghreb’s neighbor
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Libya – Arid but oil rich – not truly Maghreb
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Territorial claims
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Gulf of Sidra
Aozou Strip
Muammar Gadhafi
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Normalization of relations with U.S.
EGYPT AND THE
LOWER NILE BASIN
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Continuous civilization >
5,000 years
95% of Egypt’s 74.1
million people live within
(20 kms) of the Nile
Largest Arab state
Heritage tourism
Egypt
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Basin irrigation: floodwater trap
Perennial irrigation - mid 1800s
Aswan High Dam - 1968
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Symbolic megaproject
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Relocation of Abu Simbel
Increased agricultural land by 50%
Provides 40% of electricity
But:
Salinization
 Rising water table - schistosomiasis
 Commercial fertilizer & pesticide dependency
 Delta fishery suffers from water quality
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MIDDLE
EAST
The Middle East
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“Middle” of the Islamic realm
Center of conflict
Sunni - Shi’ite
Kurdistan: Nation without a state
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Turkey
Iran
Iraq
Iraq
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Surrounded by enemies
Iran-Iraq War 1980-1990
Kuwait invasion 1990, Persian Gulf War, 1991
Axis of Evil: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, 2002
WMD
Iraq War, March 2003
Iraq occupation
Iraq’s 4 Regions
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Iraq Desert
Kurdish Domain
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Sunni Domain
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16%, 1990 victims of WMD
Powerful minority (22%), Ba’athist Party
Mid-Tigris west of Baghdad: Samarra & Tikrit
Shiah Domain
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Lower Tigris East of Baghdad: Basra
Persecuted majority (60%), repression under Saddam
IRAQ
THE EMPIRE STATES
Iran
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Persian Empire
Indo-Iranian – Farsi
Shi’ite
Rugged plateau, pastoral nomadism
Tehran – 7.3 million
Peacock throne, Shah deposed in 1979
Fundamentalism
TURKEY
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Ottoman empire
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6th century empire stretching Mongolia to the Black
Sea
Spread the Turkic language
Collapsed 1818-1918
Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
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Father of modern Turkey
Capital from Constantinople to Ankara
Westernized turkey and broke free from the Arab world
Turkey
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Westernization in 1930s
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Islam lost official status
Roman alphabet replaced Arabic
Islamic law replaced by western code
Fez and beards outlawed
Monogamy
Women’s rights
Turkey distanced from Arab world
Western-Islamic tensions
EU membership
Cyprus
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Population of 900,000
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Greek heritage
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Conquered by Turks in 1571
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1878- British control
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After World War II
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Independence or union with Greece or Turkey?
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1960- Independence
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1974- Civil War
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1983- Turkish republic of northern Cyprus seceded
ISRAEL
Israel
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Zionism
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Political movement (1897) advocating the return
of the Jewish people from the diaspora to
Palestine and the creation of a Jewish homeland
and state
Balfour Declaration (1917)
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Supports the concept of a Jewish homeland
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Jewish immigration to Palestine
1922 – British mandate to govern Palestine
ISRAEL
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UN partition plan for Palestine
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Division into Jewish and Arab areas
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British evacuate Palestine in 1948
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Proclamation of Israel as a state (14 May 1948)
1948: Arab invasion (War of Independence)
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Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, & Syrian forces
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Israel seizes more land than prescribed under UN
mandate
Armistice (1949)
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900,000 Palestinian refugees
ISRAEL
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Arab – Israeli conflicts
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1956: Suez war
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1967: Six-day war – Israel gains control of:
 Gaza
strip
 Sinai
peninsula (returned to Egypt)
 West
bank of the River Jordan
 East
sector of Jerusalem
 Golan
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Heights in Syria
1973: Yom Kippur War
Current Arab-Israeli Issues
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Golan Heights- return to Syria?
Security Zone- return to Lebanon?
Jerusalem- Holy City?
West Bank- Palestinian homeland?
Palestinians- refugee problem
Arab/Islamic disruption- impact of
extremist groups
West Bank
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200,000
Israeli settlers
Middle class commuters
Aquifers are significant