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World geography

Chapter 1Globalization and World

Regions

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Different and similar world

• If you compared places, you would find…– what the different is.– what the common is.

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People

匈奴 Xiongnu

日耳曼 Germanic

Roman Emperor, Leo I

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Food

Chinese food

Japanese

English food (Fired! Fired! Fired!)

Turkish food (Donser Kebap 沙威瑪 )

Pasta Pizza

Italian Food

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Landscape

Vancouver Taipei City

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Different and Changing Worlds

• Political, economic, and social experience and expectations are rapidly change nowadays.

• The physical shape of world isn’t change.

• But connecting among people bring places closer as cooperation, competition, and conflict with other peoples become more intense.

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9/11

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9/11•The 911 event alerted American’s government “You can not dominate another county arbitrarily”

•What’s different from Muslims and Americans?Environment Society, Economics, Politics

•Oil Economics Political Power Cultural decline, poverty, belief conflict reaction

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4 geographic levels to see Earth

• Global– views from spacecraft show the

contrasts between continental land areas and ocean waters.

• Major World regions– are whole or large parts of continents

and are the division used in this text for the regional chapters.

• Countries– are the building blocks of major world

regions.

• Local regions– are parts of countries and the places

where many individuals voice their concerns.

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Globalization vs. Localization

• Globalization – Globalization is increasing level of

interconnections among people throughout the world.

– The speed and intensity of globalization, in terms of world trade and the flow of financial investments, increased markedly in the 1990s.

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Globalization vs. Localization• Localization is both response to and the outco

me of globalization. – On the one hand, global exchanges and flows of inf

ormation, ideas, people, money, and technology move us toward worldwide political solutions, economic exchanges, cultural attitudes, and environmental concerns.

– On the other, localization focuses on distinctive identities of places or people in regions, countries, or local areas.

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Facets of Globalization

• Increasing connections take place through intensified flows of ideas, goods, and people:– Ideas, technologies, and diseases;– Goods from many place of manufacture;– People migrations for work, political

asylum, family consolidation, and long-distance tourism;

– The spread of images and message through the media of TV, film, the Internet and print.

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Facets of Localization• Local voice remain loud in our consciousness

and ensure that global trends are often far from being fulfilled.– Political nationalism maintains separation countrie

s and of groups within countries. Ex. Basque, Aceh

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Facets of Localization

– Despite globalization force, many local customs and practices preserve local identities. Ex. Pop music

– Changes and intensification of ideologies, especially religious or political beliefs. Ex. 三民主義

– Religious difference among Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu countries continue to be signification.

– Demonstrators resist the visible economic penetration of countries around the world by global media and corporations such as CNN, the Murdoch group, McDonald’s, Starbuck, Toyota, and Nike.

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Figure 1.3

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Despite of globalization, the World remained diverse

• Political activity: Countries Act– 1950-1991 Cold war– North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) vs.

Soviet Union– Association of South East Asian Nations

(ASEAN) vs. Communist governments– Southern Africa Development Coordination

(SADCC) vs. apartheid– UN become a world-wide level arbitrator

• Inside vs. Outside

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Economic Activities: Global Trends

• The numbers people living on < $1 per day– 900 m (85%)(1820)1.4 b (30%)(1980) 1.2 b (20%)(200

0)• In the 1990s, the uneven spread of expanding global econo

mic activities caused group of countries to enter into or revive regional economic agreements, mainly through trade.– European Union (EU)– North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)– Mercosur (southern South America)– Association of South East Asian Countries– South Africa Development conference

• US, the countries of western Europe and Japan Controlled nearly all the investment, production, and consumption of goods.

• China, India and Brazil increased their contribution.

• Wealthier people vs. Poorer people

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Cultural Activities: Major Regions, Local Voice

• One world culture? Did these wiped out the local cultural difference– Cocacola-ization of eating and drinking habits– the spread of Western TV, movies, pop music– global markets for some consumer goods– Ex. India

• Western cultural norms– democracy, individual ,and human rights– Materialism, consumerism, and superficial value

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Civilizations (World Cultures)

• Figure 1.6

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Environmental issues at varied scales

• Earth is marked by a variety of natural environments that create differences among regions

• Natural environments affects human events at global, world regional, country, and local scales.– world regional, country, or local scales: Prediction

of hurricanelike storms, effects of acid rain, and damage from river floods and volcanic eruptions

– global scale: global warming, El Nino, the ozone hole over Antarctica, and the destruction of tropical rain forests

– Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1992), Kyoto, Japan (1997)

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What is geography about?

• Geography is study of – where and how human and natural

feature and events (political, economic, cultural, and environmental) are distributed on Earth’s surface,

– the relationships among them, – how their distributions change over time, – and how those features and relationships

affect human lives.

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Subject matter

• The tensions among globalization, localization, and the continuing significance of country governments provide a basis changes and move toward either greater interdependence or conflict.

• Thus, geographers compare places and assess the interactions among them at different levels of geographic scale.

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Geographic methods

• Location• Place• Human/Environment interaction• Movement• Region

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First, geography is about place

• Place might be a – Individual place– Small town– Large city– Rural area– Another state– Another country

• Place might be perceived as points on a map or as large area.

• However, they all have different relationships to each other in terms of location, direction, distance, and size.

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Latitude and Longitude

• Figure 1.8

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Distance and Direction

Meridian and parallel is the basic of time, distance and direction

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Map and Scale

Size of Scale Representative Franction (RF) Large Scale 1:25,000 or largerMedium Scale 1:1,000,000 to 1:25,000Small Scale 1:1,000,000 or smaller

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Next, geography is about explaining the difference among

place• The two basic geographic concepts of place

and location are combined in three main approaches to geographic information gathering and explaining– Regional geography

•A region is a area of Earth’s surface with similarities within and between defined areas, or regions, of the world.

– Spatial analysis– Human-environment relationship

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Regions and Globalization

• Regions are defined by – A high degree of uniformity– Limited variability– More-or-less lasting boundaries

• Regional boundaries may include physical features, political boundaries, or economic characteristics.

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Region’s dynamic features

• Regions are also dynamic geographic entities that have distinctive internal and external flow patterns of such phenomena as people, goods, and ideas.

• Nodes are key features of regions, being specific places from which flows begin or through which of a set of nodes may define the boundary of a region.

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Flow feature

• Flows within and among – regions include population migrations– information from the media, Internet, or

publications– movements of money– technology innovations in manufacturing

process, information processing, or new transportation modes

– and ideology through political and regions within world regions

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The flows of geographic levels

• The dynamic elements of such flows within and among regions affect the prominence– of regions within a countries– of countries within world regions– of world regions within the global

system

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The characteristics of flows

• The variety of these flows is generated by– path– speed– direction and the different relationship to social str

ucture imposed by governments and other institutions.

• Breaks or interruptions in the flows may result in social problem such as – inequities, – injustices, – and underresourced livelihoods at the local level.

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Changes in dynamic regions

• People create regions• Regions shape people’s activities• People remake regions• Regions interact with other regions• Regions are used by those in power

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Major world regions

• Europe• Russia and Neighboring Countries• East Asia• Southern Asia and South Pacific• South Asia• North Africa and Southwestern Asia• Africa South of the Sahara• Latin America• North America

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Figure 1.11

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Development of world regions

• Early history (about 5000 B.C)• Settle Farming • City-State and Empires (2500-1000 B.C.)• Trading Empires and “Classical”

Civilizations (1000 B.C.- A.D.600)• Disruptions, Migrations, and Feudalism

(A.D. 600 - 1450)• The modern, globalizing world

– Explorations and colonies ( around A.D. 1450)– Industrialization (mid-1700s)– Globalization, Countries, and Protectionism

(1450- early 1800s)

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