Types of Boundaries
A straight line boundary totally unrelated to physical features
What is a geometric boundary?
A political unit with a defined boundary, permanent population, and sovereignty over its domestic and international affairs, that is recognized by other units like it
What is a state?
The acronym for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
What is UNCLOS?
A state where the distance from any point of the country to its center is about the same
What is a compact state?
A term referring to a tightly knit group of people that usually have similarities such as cultural heritage, language, religion, etc.
What is a nation?
A boundary which conforms to physical features
What is a physical boundary?
Forces that either unify and strengthen a state's unity or weakens and destabilizes it.
(Hint: The answer is two different kinds of forces)
What are centrifugal and centripetal forces?
An alliance involving 3 or more countries for their mutual benefit such as economic, cultural or political/ military
(Ex. The EU, NATO, UN, etc.)
What is a supranational organization?
A state consisting of 2 or more pieces
What is a fragmented state?
A country that contains more than one nation
What is a multinational state?
A boundary or border that has ceased to function but has imprints still evident in cultural landscape
What is a relict boundary
The transfer of political power from the central government to sub-national levels of government (province, state, local)
What is devolution?
The redrawing of boundaries of a voting district to give a political party an advantage
What is gerrymandering?
A state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main territory
What is an elongated state?
A state with an internal organization that allocates most powers to units of local government
(Bonus 100: A state with an internal organization that places most power in the hands of the central government officials)
What is a federal state?
(Bonus: What is a unitary state?)
A boundary which developed according to the cultural landscape
What is a subsequent boundary?
The right to make laws and control things within one’s country without outside influence
What is sovereignty?
(Applies to autonomy as well)
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
(Ex. Yugoslavia)
What is balkanization?
A state that completely surrounds another state
(Bonus 100: A territory that is surrounded is by another state)
What is a perforated state?
(Bonus: What is an enclave)
A sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent
What is a nation-state?
A boundary that coincides with some cultural divide, such as religion or language to prevent conflict
What is a consequent boundary?
The belief that a state is owed the territory that formerly belonged to them in their nation's long ago past
(Ex. China believing they hold claim to the South China sea due to a battle they won for it long ago)
What is irredentism?
An area or region that suffers instability because it is located between two very different regions and results in the constant changing of borders
What is a shatterbelt?
A state with an area that extends from a compact area
What is a prorupt state?
A political term for an ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own state and is not the majority population in any nation state
What is a stateless nation?