Territories, Borders, and the Geography of Nations
Spatial Conflict
International Political Geography
Geography of Local and Regional Politics
What is Political Geography?
100
A tiny country, such as Vatican City and San Marino.
What is a microstate?
100

This spatial conflict was based on conflict between the competing economic ideologies of Communism and Capitalism.

What is the Cold War?

100
Theory created by Sir Halford Mackinder that says he who rules the heartland of Asia, rules the world.
What is the Heartland Theory?
100
A group of people with a common political identity.
What is a nation?
100

A country that bases its laws on the teachings of their holy book.

What is a Theocracy?

200
A country that completely surrounds a smaller state.
What is perforated state?
200

The process by which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create their own nation or nation-state

What is Ethnic Cleansing?

200
An international organization linking Canada, the U.S., and Mexico that promotes free trade.
What is the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA?
200
A country whose population posses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity.
What is a nation state?
200
A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by the international community.
What is a state?
300
A boundary drawn after a population has settled in an area and does not pay attention to the social, cultural, and ethnic compositions of the populations they divide.
What is a superimposed boundary?
300

The US invaded this country after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and left 2021.

What is Afghanistan?

300
An international organization that has joined together for military purposes.
What is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO?
300
Political organization that distributes political power in more easily governed units of land.
What is territorial organization?
300
A political boundary that corresponds with prominent physical features such as mountain ranges or rivers.
What is a physical boundary?
400
A force that binds countries together.
What is a centripetal force?
400
The expansion and perpetuation of an empire.
What is colonialism?
400

The fragmentation of a large state or region into smaller, often hostile or non-cooperative, units. The term originates from the breakup of the Balkan Peninsula in the early 20th century and became associated with the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

What is balkanization?

400

The delegation of legal authority from a central government to lower levels of political organization. However, the power can be taken away at any point.

What is devolution?

400

A policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it (Example: Russia trying to reclaim territory in Ukraine)

What is Irredentism?

500
The right of a nation to govern itself autonomously and thus to determine its own destiny.
What is self-determination?
500

These two groups ethnic groups clashed during the Rwandan Genocide.

Who are the Hutus and the Tutsis?

500
The idea that if one country collapses, then that can lead to the political stability in neighboring countries to collapse.
What is the domino theory?
500

A system of government in which power is distributed among certain geographical territories rather than concentrated within a central government. This power cannot be taken away.

What is federalism?

500

A dispute that is caused by disagreements over the ownership of natural resources like water or oil that are located on or beneath the border of different countries.

What is an Allocational Boundary Dispute?

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