Evolution of the Contemporary
Political Map
• Territoriality – a country's sense of property
and attachment toward its territory, as
expressed by its determination to keep it
inviolable and strongly defended
• Sovereignty – final authority over social,
economic, and political matters should rest
with the legitimate rulers of independent
states
Europe –
Beginning of the modern state
• 1648 – Peace of Westphalia
– Treaty that ended the Thirty Year’s War in Europe
– Recognized statehood, nationhood, clearly
defined borders
– View of territory as fixed
– Idea spread to entire world by 1900
Europe –
Beginning of the modern state
Nationalism
1. People have loyalty to the nation and a belief
in the nation
2. Government promotes the nation that
coincides with the borders
– Can build a single national identity out of
divergent people
19th Century European Nationalism
• Brought together people with shared cultural
characteristics
– Ex – Germany, Italy (see atlas p.84)
• Led to separatist movements
– Ex – Ireland, Norway, Poland
European Influence on the World
• Colonialism
– Europe in control of so much of the world
= Affected the political organization of space and the
global economy (capitalism!)
Let’s look at the map in the textbook pg. 230-231
European Influence on the World
• Let’s look at the atlas now:
– Pg. 82-83: Overseas Empires – What parts of the
world were colonized in the first wave?
– Pg. 84 (top): compare this map to a modern map
of Europe – What’s different? What’s the same?
– Pg. 88-89: Latin America
• What states were created out of former Spanish
territory?
• Describe Mexico’s borders in 1821 compared to today
European Influence on the World
• 1st Wave of colonialism
– Plantations, exploited Africa for slave labor, wealth
through sugar, coffee, fruit, cotton
– Characterized by conquest, plunder, slavery, and
annihilation of indigenous people
European Influence on the World
• 2nd Wave of colonialism
– After Industrial Revolution, cheap labor and raw
materials
European Influence on Africa
Berlin Conference of 1884-1885:
• A meeting held by the major
powers in Europe to end
disputes, answer questions
and divide up the land of
Africa
• The result was a hodgepodge
of geometric boundaries that
divided Africa into fifty
irregular countries—largely
ignoring ethnic differences
• Effects:
– Europeans ignored Africa’s existing states, ethnic groups,
and natural environments
– Countries left landlocked
Ethnic Diversity Map
European Influence on Africa
• When colonies became independent, gaining
legal status of sovereign state was easy;
economic independence was impossible
Effects of Colonialism
• The concentration of wealth that colonialism
brought to Europe (and parts dominated by
European settlers such as the U.S., Canada,
and Australia) is at the heart of the highly
uneven global distribution of power we still
have today.
Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory
1. The world-economy has one market and a
global division of labor
2. Although the world has multiple states,
almost everything takes place within the context
of the world economy
3. The world economy has a three-tier structure
Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory
• The three-tier structure of the world economy
– Use page 233 to identify the core, periphery, and
semi-periphery
– Define each of these categories in the key
Warm-up: Thursday
• Look at your map representing Wallerstein’s World
Systems Theory to answer the following questions:
1. List 3 countries that make up the core.
2. What are the characteristics of the core countries?
3. What are the characteristics of the periphery
countries?
Warm-up: Friday - Write down 2 observations
Law of the Sea
• http://donutholes.ch
• http://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-theSea
China-Taiwan Divide
• http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia34729538
Border Disputes
• http://io9.gizmodo.com/10-territorialdisputes-that-mean-your-maps-are-already1679513142
Warm-up: Monday
• Without looking at anything, what
words would you use to describe
“geopolitics”?
GEOPOLITICS
• Interplay among geography, power,
politics, and international relations
• Considers the strategic value of land and
sea area in the context of national
economic and military power and
ambitions
GEOPOLITICS Jigsaw
•
•
•
•
Organic Theory
Heartland Theory
Rimland Theory
Domino Theory
Warm-up: Tuesday
• Kahoot! Review of Geopolitical theories
Forms of Government: Unitary
• One central government controls everything
• Power is not shared between states or
provinces
• majority of countries today
Form of Government: Federal
• sovereign state where power is shared
between the central (federal) government and
the units of the federation (at least two).
• Therefore, there are two levels of governance
in the federal state, the central and the
regional, each of which has specific powers
(legislative, executive and judicial) granted to
them by the Federal Constitution.
Territorial
Morphology
A politico-geographic term to describe a
state that possesses a circular, oval, or
rectangular territory in which the
distance from the center to any point on
the boundary exhibits little variation
 Relatively easy to govern
 Cambodia, Uruguay, and Poland are
examples

CAMBODIA
Compact State - efficient
Shapes of States
A state whose territory is decidedly long
and narrow; its length is at least six
times greater than its average width
 Difficulties with transportation and
communications; often high regionalism
 Chile, Vietnam, Gambia, and Laos are
classic examples.

VIETNAM
Elongated State – potential
isolation
Shapes of States
A type of territorial shape that exhibits a
narrow, elongated land extension
leading away from the main body of the
territory
 ‘protrusion’ is often peripheral from the
core with differing culture and
economy
 Thailand and Myanmar are
leading examples
THAILAND

Protruded (prorupted) State –
access or disruption
Shapes of States
Completely surrounded the territory of
other states
 A ‘hole’ exists within the state’s
territorial extent
 Access to the outside world is difficult
for the ‘hole’ state – needs to be on
friendly terms with the ‘perforated’ state
 South Africa is an excellent example
(Lesotho and Swaziland are the
‘holes’) Other examples?

Perforated State –
South Africa
Shapes of States
A state whose territory consists of
several separated parts, not a
contiguous whole
 The individual parts may be isolated
from each other by the land area of other
states or by international waters
 Separation is a challenge to
communications and transportation; high
regionalism
 Philippines and Indonesia
MALAYSIA
are also examples.

Fragmented State - Problematic
Shapes of States
Warm-up: Wednesday
What do you see?
1
3
2
4
• What are legislative district boundaries?
• Why are legislative district boundaries redrawn?
• San Antonio City Council:
http://www.sanantonio.gov/Council/FindMyCou
ncilMember.aspx
• Census explanation:
https://www.census.gov/geo/mapsdata/data/aboutcd.html
• Watch the video … What is your opinion of
this parody?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMqxdNUDOo
• Gerrymandering visualized:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won
k/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-bestexplanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-eversee/
• Gerrymandering parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMqxdNUDOo
FRQ – 2015 #1
• Complete the FRQ with a partner …
• Be prepared to share your response
Warm-up: Monday
• Create one or more memory devices to help
you learn the countries of Europe. Be
prepared to share!
Let’s finish talking about the EU
• Review what we covered …
• Finish presenting …
• Article about the future of the EU
Warm-up: Tuesday
• Kahoot! Europe map review …
Devolution
• process whereby regions within a state
demand and gain political strength and
growing autonomy at the expense of the
central government (e.g., Basque and
Catalonia in Spain, Chechnya in Russia, …).
• The breakdown of a state into smaller
political units
Examples of Devolution in Europe
Break up of a state
• Yugoslavia/ Balkans
Demand for autonomy
• UK: Scotland, Wales,
Ireland, N. Ireland
• Former U.S.S.R.
• Spain: Basques, Catalonians
• Czechoslovakia
• France: Corsica
• Austria-Hungary
• Balkanization - geopolitical term, originally
used to describe the process of fragmentation
or division of a region or state into smaller
regions or states that are often hostile or
uncooperative with one another.
Former Yugoslavia
• Yugoslavia was created as a multi-ethnic state at end of
WWI to unite all South Slavic speakers
• Relative peace under Josep Tito 1953-1980
• “Yugoslavia has seven neighbors, six republics, five
nationalities, four languages, three religions, two
alphabets, and one dinar.”
• Balkanization in 1990s: wars and ethnic cleansing broke
country into Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro,
Macedonia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina - border
disputes
• Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008
Former Soviet Union
• http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0924/nation-dividing-mapping-worldssignificant-separatist-movements
• https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/centripetaland-centrifugal-forces-work-nation-state
Devolution in the United States?
FRQ
Supranationalism vs. Devolution
• http://srmsgeographyrecord.weebly.com/uplo
ads/1/3/4/3/13437016/supranationalism.pdf
Warm-up: Thursday
• Kahoot! Europe map Review
• Centripetal force – forces that unify a state –
national culture, shared ideological objectives,
common faith,…
• Centrifugal force – forces that divide a state –
internal religious, political, economic,
linguistic, or ethnic differences
Fragile States Index
• http://library.fundforpeace.org/library/fragiles
tatesindex-2015.pdf
• Use the information to answer the analysis
questions.
• https://apmodels.wikispaces.com/Political+Ge
ography
Scoop.it Political Geo
• http://www.scoop.it/t/geographyeducation?tag=unit+4+political