In order to begin to understand the three major clusters in the world, it is important that the reader knows how these clusters came to be and why they are located where they are. For starters, geographers began to categorize earth’s countries as geographic realms. A geographic realm is defined as the basic spatial unit in our world regionalization scheme (Wiley GL-5). Each of these geographic realms is separated by environmental, cultural, and organizational properties. A geographic realm has various characteristics but can be identified by three distinct sets of criteria: physical and human, functional, and historical. Physical and human are the physical and social makeup of a realm. For example, South America is viewed as a geographic realm …show more content…
The wet monsoon arrives in early June, when the inflow of oceanic air reaches a critical mass. During the wet monsoon, it may rain 60 days or more. The rain in turn helps wash away the dry season’s dust and dirt. The wet monsoon is critical to all three physiographic zones in South Asia, which include the following: the northern mountains, the southern plateaus, and a wide crescent of river lowlands. The northern mountains extend from the Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges in the northwest through the Himalayas to ranges of Bhutan and the Arunachal Pradesh in the east (Wiley 405). It is dry and barren in the west on the Afghanistan border, but the ranges become green in Kashmir and lead to forest areas in the lower-lying sections of Nepal. The river lowlands extend eastward from Indus Valley through the Gangetic Plain and across the double delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra in Bangladesh. The east being called the North Indian plain and to the west is the lowland of the Indus River. The south Asian realm and its people rely heavily on the water being transported down from the Himalayas to its major rivers, such as the Brahmaputra, the Indus and Ganges.
The East Asian realm is mostly mainland. It forms a triangular wedge between the vast expanses of eastern Russia to the north and the populous countries of South and Southeast Asia to the south, the edges are marked by high mountain ranges and remote
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However, the people of South Asia can remain hopeful. The economy continues to grow at faster rate than the population. Fertility rates are still rather high with India alone adding 15 million people per year over the past decade (Wiley 420). However, that number is predicted to steadily decline in the coming years. East Asia is categorized as being in stage 4 of the Demographic Transition Model, meaning birth and death rates are both low. This is directly the result of the Chinese government’s “one child policy”. China’s “one child policy” has left a gender imbalance of 117 boys for every 100 girls. Along with a gender imbalance, China has many babies that were born during the population explosion getting older. This leaves a significant imbalance between the younger generations to follow and the growing older generation (Wiley 486-488). Unlike South and East Asia, Europe’s population is decreasing. Countries are reporting an average of less than 2 children are being born to mothers. This directly affects the pensions and funds for health care because there are not enough workers to pay taxes for these social services (Wiley 53). A bright spot for Europe’s population deficit has been immigration, which has brought along new
In the book The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, the author, Harm de Blij, argues that where we are born and our geography can affect who we are and what we will become. He applies his knowledge of geography and other relatable information such as health, economy, languages, and several other areas of subject. De Blij categorizes the earth into three subdivisions: locals, globals, and mobals. He defines locals as “those who are poorest, least mobile, and most susceptible to the power of place” (pg-notes). Globals are those who “whether in government, industry, business, or other decision-making capacities, flatten
One theme that is evident throughout Blij’s “Power of Place” is the concept of culture regions mainly his analysis of formal, core, and periphery areas. To introduce the idea of culture regions he mentions how the many of the world’s underdeveloped and poor nations are part of the world’s periphery. In particular, referring to Blij’s map on page 14 many of the developed countries are among the world’s core nations: Japan, Australia, United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Blij explains through his diagram that the peripheries are located in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East (14). Blij des...
Feng Wang and Cai Yong stated that the fertility rate was already declining and the policy wasn’t necessary for the Chinese people, especially because of the enormous costs. The fertility rate, which is the number of children the average woman has in her lifetime, in China started at 2.7 in 1979 and decreased to 1.7 in 2008. The article “China’s One Child Policy at 30” argued that the policy did not need to be introduced in China because the rates were already lower than Brazil at 4.2 and Thailand at 3.6.
This book illustrates just how essential it is to be well-educated when it comes to geography. Throughout the book, Harm de Blij brings to our attention how illiterate Americans are when it comes to geography. He brings us This is an example of absolute location not to be confused with relative location because here, de Blij uses coordinates to indicate where the capitals are located. “Now the possibility arises that further global warming, speeded up by human pollution of the atmosphere, will cause a further rise in sea levels”(134).
Also not to mentioned that researches have found that the poorer regions have increased their chances at doing economically better than before. Johnson (1993) agrees that every time the Chinese government implements the population regulations, they find orphanages to be in an even tighter spot because their number of children increases making them work extra to find a home for the little girls. Also, as we could see since males were preferred Cai & Lavely (2003) shows in their 2000 census how China was around 12.8 million girls fewer than boys. These two articles showed us that a macro social problem such as overpopulation can turn into another problem such as child trafficking. Child trafficking can be overlooked because these little girls are being adopted but most of the time we do not know what happens after they leave China, as not all parents might stay in contact with the orphanage. This social problem might not only be present in China but everywhere else. The El Paso Del Norte Center of Hope is an agency that assists children with housing, legal assistance
In an increasingly global world geography matters now more than ever. With so many groundbreaking technological advances within the last 50 years the world is rapidly evolving into a more interconnected and codependent society. These strides of advancement not only allow for international business interactions, but it allows instant communication to make business more cohesive. As a more interconnected society it is important for every person to understand the locations and cultural motivations of the people they interact with. These subject matters are suggested and discussed in “Why Geography Matters…More Than Ever!”
It is clear that China’s one child policy has affected Chinese society in multiple ways. The policy has resulted in corruption in the Chinese government, an abuse of women’s rights, female feticide, and an imbalance in the gender ratio, and potential problems with China’s elderly and younger populations. The Chinese government decided to implement a one child policy in order to counter the effects of rapid population growth. The question to ask is if the benefits of population control really do outweigh the problems the policy has created in Chinese society. It will be interesting to see if the policy continues to affect Chinese culture in the future, and how the changes that have been recently made play out.
China’s communist party created this policy in 1979 and has prevented over 400 million births with the use of forced abortions and sterilizations like Uzbekistan. In January of 2016, this policy has been changed into a two-child policy due to a realization that there can be an economic consequence to the failing birth-rate. Also, due to the fact that couples can only have one child, the future of China’s population can be a burden. Researchers stated, “The graying population will burden health care and social services, and the world’s second-largest economy will struggle to maintain its growth (Jiang, Steven)”. With the lack of production for more newborns, the population will gradually have a majority of elderly people within their society. The new population policy made add an increase in population, but it still puts a limit on the population. If couples had this policy lifted, it can make the overpopulation problem occur again. Therefore, this transition from one child to two children helps balance out under-population and overpopulation in
Domosh, Mona, Roderick Neumann, Patricia Price, and Terry Jordan-Bychkov. The Human Mosaic: A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. 11thth ed. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 2010. N. pag. Print.
In Spite of the great achievements that China has achieved in the recent years, our country is still a developing country, which is facing many serious social problems. The most serious of all is overpopulation, for it has a passive influence on the national economy, education and environment.
Thesis statement : Since the population has grown rapidly in the past fifty (5) years, how did the Chinese government deal with the population explosion in the past and how will they deal with it in the future? Though China is the world's fifth-largest country in terms of area and the second largest country in Asia, it is the most populous country in the world. There is over one billion Chinese people, which is 19 percent of the world's population, and the population still keeps growing. From 2000 to 2010, Chinese population growth was about 6.2% and if we compared the population from 1960 with 2010, the population had grown more than 100%.
3. Blij, H.J. de and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts 2000 Ninth Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000.
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.
Water Issues in South Asia If there is any single most important issue that mars bilateral relations among the countries of the subcontinent, it is water. The issues of cross-border water distribution, utilisation, management and mega irrigation/hydro-electric power projects affecting the upper and lower riparian countries are gradually taking centre-stage in defining interstate relations as water scarcity increases and both drought and floods make life too often miserable. Thanks to its location, size and contiguous borders with other South Asian countries, it is India, in its capacity as both upper and lower riparian, that has come into conflict with most of its neighbours, except Bhutan, on the cross-border water issues. Given an atmosphere of mistrust, an upper riparian India has serious issues to resolve with lower riparian Pakistan and Bangladesh and, despite being lower riparian, with the upper riparian Nepal.
The six concepts of geography are location, region, spatial pattern, spatial interaction, human/ environmental interaction, and culture. The location is everything; it is the starting point in geography. The region is the area of the land with consistent recognizable features, it has variations in its physical features. There are mountains, hills, valleys, plains, plateaus, oceans, lakes, deserts and wilderness, variations occur in its social and cultural features too. The spatial pattern is when a pattern is found in places that are far apart. Spatial interaction is when geographers believe one event can lead to a change in another location that is far away. Managing change is a key aspect of geography, geographers learn from past changes and predict and future ones. Human/ environmental interaction is the impact humans have on the environment. Interaction is closely linked to change. Again, in both physical and human aspects of the subject, geographers want to find out how things are linked together and how one aspect affects another. Lastly culture has different impacts on the environment, natural resources, concern issues of how people think about the world and how they communicate that thinking to