Political Geography Vocabulary List
1. Autocracy
2. Boundary
3. City-State
4. Colonialism
5. Colony
6. Compact State
7. Democracy
8. Devolution
9. Elongated State
10. Federal State
11. Fragmented State
12. Frontier
13. Gerrymandering
14. Irredentism
15. Landlocked State
16. Microstate
17. Multiethnic State
18. Multinational State
19. Nation-State
20. Perforated State
21. Prorupted State
22. Self-determination
23. Sovereignty
24. State
25. Terrorism
26. Unitary State
A country that is run according to the interests of the ruler rather
than the people
An invisible line that marks the extent of a state’s territory
A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediately surrounding
countryside
An attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its
political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory
A territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than
completely independent
A state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does
not vary significantly
A country in which citizens elect leaders and can run for office
The breakdown of central authority in a country
A state with a long, narrow shape
An internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to
units of local government
A state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory
A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises
political control
The process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of
benefiting the party in power
The destabilizing situation that arises when an ethnic group
supports and seeks to unite with its ethnic population in another
country
A state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea
A state that encompasses a very small land area
A state that contains more than one ethnicity
A state that contains two or more ethnic groups with traditions of
self-determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing
each other as distinct nationalities
A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular
ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality
A state that completely surrounds another one
An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension
The concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves
Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its
internal affairs by other states
An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established
government that has control over its internal and foreign affairs
The systematic use of violence by a group in order to intimidate a
population or coerce a government into granting its demands
An internal organization of a state that places most power in the
hands of central government officials