POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF SPACE Contemporary Political Map Evolution

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF SPACE Contemporary Political Map Evolution of the Map Geopolitical Forces

OBJECTIVES • Explain the structure of the contemporary political map • Explain the evolution of the contemporary political map • Evaluate the geopolitical forces that influence the contemporary map

WHAT IS A STATE? • An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government that has control over its internal and foreign affairs • Country is a synonym for a state • Approximately 200 countries today • Largest – Russia • Microstate – a state with very small land areas

SOVEREIGN STATES • Sovereignty- independence from control of internal affairs by other states • Estimating number of sovereign : complicated • North Korea • − China and Taiwan • − Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands • − Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara)

NATION STATES • A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity • Ancient States • Fertile Crescent • City States- sovereign state that comprises a town and the surrounding country side • Mesopotamia – Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians

NATION STATES • Mesopotamia center of valley formed by the Tigris and Euphrates river in present day Iraq • Nile river valley is an extension of the Fertile Cresent

MEDIEVAL STATES • Roman Empire brought political unity • Controlled most of Europe and SW Asia and North Africa from Modern day Spain to Iran and from Egypt to England • Collapsed in the 5 th century

DEVELOPMENT OF STATES • European portion of the Roman Empire divided into estates owned by monarchs, dukes, barons, and nobles • Unified under monarchs around 1100 • Basis for France, England Spain

STATES IN TWENTIETH- CENTURY EUROPE • Handful of kings and queens ruled most of Europe’s territory • After WWI • Europe was divided into a collection of Nation States using language as the principal criteria for identifying the ethnic groups

NATION STATES AND MULTINATIONAL STATES • Self Determination- ethnicities have the right to govern themselves • Multiethnic state – a state that contains more than one ethnicity (every states in the world) • Multinational State- contains more than one ethnicity with traditions of self determination and self government