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Afghanistan,Belarus, Bangladesh, Belize, India, Honduras, Iran, Jamaica, Jordan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Argentina, Algeria, Kenya, Kazakhstan,Brazil, South Africa, Sudan, China, Tajikistan, Thailand, Costa Rica, Colombia, Cambodia, Mexico, Cuba, Turkey, Tonga, Ukraine, Vietnam, Ecuador, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Fiji, Egypt, Pakistan, Georgia Afghanistan,Belarus, Bangladesh, Belize, India, Honduras, Iran, Jamaica, Jordan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Argentina, Algeria, Kenya, Kazakhstan,Brazil, South Africa, Sudan, China, Tajikistan, Thailand, Costa Rica, Colombia, Cambodia, Mexico, Cuba, Turkey, Tonga, Ukraine, Vietnam, Ecuador, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Fiji, Egypt, Pakistan, Georgia Nonrenewable resources form so slowly that for practical purposes, they cannot be replaced when used. Examples include coal, oil, gas, and ores of uranium, aluminum, lead, copper, and iron.
• Renewable resources are replaced continually, at least within a human lifespan. Examples include solar energy, air, wind, water, trees, grain, livestock, and medicines made from plants. • Global circulation patterns include bands of low pressure and convective lifting in the tropics, high pressure and descending air in the subtropics, low pressure in the midlatitudes, and high pressure at the poles. Surface winds blow from high pressure toward low pressure, deflected by Coriolis force. Thus, in low latitudes winds blow from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere, toward the equator. In the midlatitudes, winds generally blow from the west, and in the polar regions winds tend to be easterly but variable in the north polar region.
• Ocean surface circulation generally follows the prevailing winds, creating large gyres that are clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. In the midlatitudes of the southern hemisphere, strong currents blow around the globe from west to east. Vertical circulation is controlled by differences in water density • The world population is increasing, but the rate of growth is slowing. The rate of increase in each country represents a balance among the crude birth rate, the crude death rate, and migration. Concern over population size focuses on the total fertility rate (TFR), which has been dropping in most countries. Most of the population increase is occurring in poor, not rich, countries.
• Countries generally transition through four stages of demographic change. The demographic transition describes changes occurring in a society that begins with high birth rates and high death rates but stable population size. Declining death rates cause populations to grow, slowing only once birth rates start to decline later on. Population sizes stabilize as birth rates and death rates reach historic lows. Many rich countries' populations are now experiencing birth rates that are lower than death rates, causing population size to shrink and signaling a new phase of population decline.
• In today's poor countries, crude birth rates are dropping fast but for different reasons, it seems, than wealthier countries. Theories of explanation focus on the growing role of family-planning programs, the status of women, new contraceptive technologies, and changing attitudes about fertility. Family-planning efforts face obstacles in traditional cultures, religions, and—in some cases—the cost of devices. -The Blue Ridge Mountains, or Great Smokies as they are known in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. today. The Ridge and Valley province, a strikingly folded landscape of long, parallel ridges and valleys, extends from New York to northern Alabama. In terms of geologic age, the Blue Ridge formation is part of the relatively "old" eastern Appalachians and the Ridge and Valley formation is part of the relatively "new" western Appalachians.
-Gulf-Atlantic Coastal Plain lies along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the United States.
-The Rocky Mountains
- The Interior Plateaus ( The Colorado Plateau lies more than a mile high in southwestern Colorado, eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and New Mexico, producing the Grand Canyons, The "Old West") Soil is a complex medium, containing six principal components:
1. Rocks and rock particles, which constitute the greatest portion of the soil and may weather, releasing nutrients needed for plant growth.
2. Organic matter, which is composed of dead and decaying plant and animal remains that holds water, supports soil organisms, and supplies nutrients.
3. Dissolved substances, including phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and other nutrients needed for plant growth. • Producers—green plants and other organisms that produce food for themselves and for consumers that eat them.
• Consumers—organisms that eat producers, other consumers, or both.
• Decomposers—small organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, insects, and worms, that digest and recycle dead organisms.
• Abiotic materials and energy necessary for production and consumption to occur—water, mineral nutrients, gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, and energy (light and heat). NORTH AMERICA HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
About 2 million Indians were first in the US. Europeans(Spaniards, English and Dutch, The French in Quebec & Montreal) were first to immigrate to US and Canada mostly in the east coast. Most Indians died due to communicable diseases brought by the Europeans or by war from the settlers trying to establish land. Then started westward, An early negotiation for land involved the French-controlled Louisiana Territory, just west of the Mississippi River and extending to the Rocky Mountains as well as
- East and West Florida from the Spanish, partly in response to military action and offers of money (East Florida cost the United States $5 million).
• Texas from Mexico, mainly through military action that initially involved only an American insurgency within Texas but ultimately led to war between the United States and Mexico in 1846
• California and the U.S. Southwest, from Mexico. The war with Mexico resulted in a treaty in 1848 that not only formalized U.S. acquisition of Texas, but ultimately led to a transfer of what is now California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of neighboring states for $15 million. The final piece was a purchase from Mexico of a strip of territory in southern Arizona in 1853 (Gadsden Purchase) for a railroad route.
• Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, from Britain. While the United States originally claimed territory well into the modern Canadian province of British Columbia, negotiation with Britain eventually gave the United States only the territory south of the 49th parallel of latitude (the modern boundary).
-The last major territorial acquisitions were the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 and annexation of Hawaii in 1898.
-Large numbers of Africans were brought involuntarily to the United States as slaves, until the slave trade was prohibited in 1808—prohibited as a matter of law, but not always as a matter of fact.
The national era can be divided into three smaller segments, each with its own characteristics: - (1) the northwestern European wave (1820-1870) was still heavily British, Irish, German, and Dutch, but included some of the first migrants from Asia and Latin America;
-(2) the "Great Deluge" (1870-1920) witnessed the migration of more than 26 million people to the United States, many from traditional northwestern European sources, but many more from Scandinavia, eastern and southern Europe, China, Japan, and Latin America;
-(3) the miscellaneous influx from 1920 to the present has been made up of a wide variety of origins, especially Asian and Latin American.
Loyalists not welcome in the 13 colonies immigrated to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Great Lakes region, creating an English-speaking counterweight to French-speaking Quebec and contributing to an Anglicization process that eventually put French speakers in the minority. Canada officially became a self-governing country with the implementation of the British North America Act on July 1, 1867. The new country embraced parts of modern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The new government combined an American type of federalism—a confederation of provinces—with a British parliamentary form of government—a House of Commons and a Senate.
Prior to Confederation, Canada was populated mainly by people from the British Isles, by Americans (Loyalists and others who came looking for cheap land), and by the French in Quebec.
Between 1896 and 1911, about 2.5 million immigrants—from the Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Finland, and China, as well as Great Britain and the United States—arrived in Canada, many on the way to the Prairies
-After World War I immigration continued, particularly to urban areas, and included large numbers of people not only from traditional European and U.S. sources but also from Commonwealth Asia and Africa.
-Today, the people of Canada embrace a cultural spectrum of such breadth that Ukrainian, Sri Lankan, and Portuguese surnames (among many others) are almost as common as British and French. Canada, like its neighbor to the south, has become a cultural mosaic. -The strongest economies in Latin America are Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, in that order
-The weakest economy (excluding small Caribbean Islands) and the poorest population in the region is Haiti, followed by the Central American republics excluding Costa Rica and Panama, and Bolivia in South America.
-SEVENTH LARGEST ECONOMY (Brazil), next is Mexico
-30% of population live in poverty
-ECOTOURISM
-EXPORT (COFFEE
-ILLEGAL DRUGS
-MANUFACTURING(pharmaceuticals, aircraft, automobiles, computers, and communication devices)
-TOURISM SHOULD HAVE 740 MILLION PEOPLE IN 2050. NO GROWTH AFTER THAT, WILL SEE AGING POPULATION
-The highest population densities in the region are found in the Caribbean and around the megacities of Latin America that have more than 10 million inhabitants, including metro Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Mexico City, Mexico.
-Middle America has considerable ethnic and cultural diversity. Mexico is mostly mestizo, but indigenous peoples dominate southern Mexico and Guatemala. Populations with African ancestry are found in numerous locations in Central America, but most commonly in the Caribbean. Ethnic minorities live in many places where their ethnicity is not dominant, which is important to keep in mind when interpreting maps of ethnicity and ancestry. EUROPE MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, and (former) Yugoslavia.
-characterized by mountainous zones, plains, and river valleys
-Danube river ( extensive river begins in Germany and passes through eight other countries before emptying into the Black Sea in Romania.)
- Europe's best-known rivers flow mostly toward the Atlantic (Rhine, Seine, Loire, Elbe) or Mediterranean/Adriatic Seas (Ebro, Po).
-Mountains like Pyrenees and Alps run east-west.
-The Mediterranean Sea lies atop a major plate boundary between the Eurasian and Hellenic plates and the African Plate, providing (along with Iceland) the region's major tectonically active zone and youngest mountain ranges. - Europe is one of the most highly developed regions in the world. It is home to some of the wealthiest economies, both in absolute and per capita terms.
- According to the United Nations, the top four countries ranked by GDP per capita in 2011 were Liechtenstein, Monaco, Luxembourg, and Norway, all in Europe.
-It is quite rare to see a homeless person in a European city, even in the poorest parts of Europe. In some respects, this is the great success story of Europe—the region's economic prosperity is not accompanied by widespread social distress or poverty
-As a percentage of the national income, the top nine countries in development aid and charitable giving to poor countries in 2011 were European
-by many measures, London is the largest financial center in the world, where 40 percent of all currency trading and a substantial proportion of the derivatives trading take place.
-TOURISM AND ENTERTAINMENT
-Another economic trend is the rise of technopoles, which are districts with a high concentration of technology-related manufacturing, research, and design. T -Moderate climates and generally ample precipitation are important factors explaining the more or less even distribution of population in Europe
-Europe is mild for its latitude, and experiences little of the extreme temperature swings one finds in North America and the rest of northern Eurasia.
-Europe's three large climate regions are marine west coast, humid continental, and mediterranean.
-The Alps, with their unique mountainous climate of wet, cool summers and snowy, cold winters, and the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, with much the same conditions as the Alps. - natural resource exploitation and agricultural and manufacturing innovations that profoundly altered the natural environment (DEFORESTATION,
- Changes in precipitation and temperature can also be linked to periods of political and social unrest as well as disease outbreaks
-The burning of coal for manufacturing and power generation (coal remains Europe's largest fuel source for electricity) also created an acid rain problem in many parts of Central Europe.
-The high acid content interferes with aquatic organisms' life cycles, changes pH levels in soil causing tree death, and causes decay of buildings, monuments, and statues.
-a combination of seasonal storm patterns, sea-level rise, subsidence, and land-use changes have threatened to submerge Venice.
-Scientists estimate that the expected rise in global temperatures would cause significant coastal flooding in the British Isles, Southern Europe, and along the North Sea and Baltic Sea. -Northern Eurasia comprises six former Soviet countries—Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan
-the Ural Mountains, conventionally considered to divide Europe and Asia, reach a maximum of 6,250 feet (1,900 meters) in the remote north, but rarely exceed 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) in the settled area of the country.
-- Eastern Siberia consists of rugged, eroded plateaus bounded on the east and south by substantial mountain ranges.
-Narrow strips along the Pacific shore and in coastal river valleys benefit from the moderating influence of the sea, but most of the immense area east of the Yenisey River is isolated and inhospitable.
-The Volga stands out among them as the longest river in Europe and the one most treasured in Russian culture. Unfortunately, the Volga flows to the landlocked Caspian Sea, which contributed to Russia's historical isolation, although a canal enables access to the Sea of Azov today.
-The result of the northern location, continentality, and topography is a pattern of exceptionally large bands of essentially uniform vegetation and natural regions: tundra, taiga, mixed forest, deciduous broadleaf forest, forest steppe, steppe, semidesert, and deser -Today Odesa is Ukraine's largest port and a major tourist attraction
-But perhaps the most controversial stage of the transition was privatization of industry. Under the Soviet system, the country's economy in theory was the property of the people, although in practice it belonged to the state. Privatization reform promised to make all citizens shareholders in corporations, but in reality the elite concentrated control over all valuable assets.
A social-Darwinian struggle of survival between the new entrepreneurs led to the emergence of the oligarchs, a few individuals who controlled vast economic empires. Whereas under Communist rule nobody could accumulate private wealth, today Russia is second only to the United States in the number of billionaires.
- Hardly anything is produced more cheaply in Russia than anywhere else because of harsh climatic conditions, distance to markets, inadequate transportation and communications infrastructures, obsolescent technology, corruption, and other factors NORTHERN EURASIA CURRENT AND PAST CHALLENGES
Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine
-their economies are not completely reformed, their governments at best are vulnerable and flawed democracies, and they lack full-fledged civil societies.
-However, not all of these countries, especially Ukraine and Georgia, welcome the Russian embrace.
-Shipping suffers because all of Russia's and Ukraine's ports are hampered by ice in winter, with the exception of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula's northern coast.
_Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown and the destruction of the Aral Sea.
-Countless other environmental problems are known to exist in the region, involving air, water, and ground pollution, erosion, threats to biodiversity, and other issues
-All the major rivers in the European part of the area suffer from diverse and numerous sources of pollution.
- The Black Sea and the Sea of Azov are heavily polluted. CENTRAL ASIA AND AFHANISTAN MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Afghanistan, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
-From 1920 to 1991, the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).
-The region is dominated by mountain climates in the southeast and deserts and midlatitude steppes in lower-lying areas to the north and west.
-With soaring mountain peaks over 19,700 feet (6,000 meters) high and depressions that sink below sea level, Central Asian landscapes are extremely varied.
-Extensive lowland deserts and semiarid plains contrast with intensive islands of verdant vegetation in deep river valleys and narrow floodplains, creating a difficult, often extreme, setting for human life and livelihood. -This world region was at the crossroads of some of the most important ancient empires, such as Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq), the Indus River valley (now in Pakistan), the Iranian Plateau, Greece, Rome, and China.
-The seeming paucity of natural resources sharply contrasts with a rich diversity of cultural groups, often complexly intermixed and established in place for centuries if not millennia.
-The dominant religion in Central Asia is Islam.
-Minority Shi'a and Ismaili sects are largely confined to the mountains of central Afghanistan and the Pamir Mountains of eastern Tajikistan and Afghanistan, where historically these minorities have found refuge.
-Christianity is represented by Russian Orthodox minorities in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
- To a considerable degree, this map is a religious heritage map in the former Soviet republics, since a large part of the population considers itself to be secular, or even atheist, rather than religious in matters of faith. -Indo-European language (the Indo-European language family also includes English, French, Russian, and most other European languages),
-the various Turkic people speak languages from the Altaic family, which some linguists believe is related to Mongolian and Korean.
-RUSSIAN
-IRANIAN GROUP(TAJIK, PASHTO, NURASTANI BALOCHI)
-TURKISH (UBEK, KAZAHK, KYRGYZ, TURKMEN, KARAKALPEK) CENTRAL ASIA AND AFHANISTAN CURRENT AND PAST CHALLENGES
Afghanistan, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
-The environmental challenges facing Central Asia and Afghanistan today are largely a result of Soviet planning and overreach that had no place for either sustainability or the welfare of the local inhabitants.
-In Central Asia, these challenges include the Aral Sea crisis , erosion from the Virgin Lands Program, and the remnants of the Soviet nuclear program. The nuclear program has affected both eastern Kazakhstan and the Fan Mountains of Tajikistan.
- In eastern Kazakhstan around the Soviet city of Semipalatinsk (now Semey), the Soviets exploded approximately 460 nuclear bombs in an area of the nearby steppe. Radiation remains a problem and over the years has destroyed the health of both people and livestock in the area.
- In Tajikistan, uranium mining has caused severe damage to many streams that flow out of the Fan Mountains. The Soviets allowed the runoff (or tailings) of the mines to flow into nearby streams, and from where these tailings enter the water, no life can be found downstream for many miles. THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
The Middle East and North Africa (sometimes abbreviated as MENA) region is composed of countries that cluster around the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia)
-There are large sandy areas of mobile sand dunes, such as the Great Western Erg in Algeria or the Nafud Desert in northwest Saudi Arabia
-sandy areas are largely devoid of vegetation except when groundwater happens to be close to the surface . -Stony hammada (rock) and serir (pebble) surfaces are more common.
-Both sandy and stony areas also lack the soil and water needed to sustain vegetation and human life.
-0f much greater importance for human settlement are the mountain ranges and upland plateaus that provide a basis for livelihood and economy. These highlands have lower temperatures, higher rainfall totals, and more reliable agricultural resources than many coastal districts and interior areas. Rainfall totals are often substantial. THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA MAJOR CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
-These countries are characterized as much by the unifying bonds of Islam and Arab culture as by deep internal contrasts and severe conflicts.
-The uneven distribution of oil reserves explains many differences in development, standards of living, and political influence.
-Islam expanded rapidly from its core in the western Arabian Peninsula to dominate most of North Africa and the Middle East by the mid-eighth century.
-The Islamic faith remains a powerful force in structuring society and state, despite the presence of nationalist forces and non-Islamic minorities.
-most Christian communities, regardless of the rite practiced, are Arabs
-Finally, this world region has long functioned as a crossroads for Europe, Asia, and Africa, enabling an exchange of goods and ideas throughout history.
-The traditional flowing robes reduce moisture loss through sweating by insulating the wearer from the intense desert sun and by allowing free airflow to cool the skin. Their light color reflects rather than absorbs sunlight, keeping body temperature lower, and the use of head coverings reduces the risk of sunstroke -Housing also reflects climatic adaptation Vaulted roofs, high ceilings, and the use of tiles promote cooler conditions by allowing warm air to rise or by absorbing less heat. Shutters and sunscreens cover or shade window openings to prevent direct sunlight from penetrating and heating interior spaces
-Over time identification of the Middle East with the eastern Mediterranean took deep root. Today this is reflected in the widespread use of the term Middle East in popular literature, by academic area studies programs, as well as most aid and international organizations
-The Arabs occupy the central core of the region, having spread out from their ancestral homeland in the Arabian Peninsula. Large minorities of Turks, Persians, Kurds, Berbers, and Nilo-Hamitic groups are found in more peripheral locations.
-. In public, women cover their head with a scarf, their face with a veil, and their body with an enveloping outer garment that reaches to their feet. Men wear a skull cap and very full, untrimmed beard, although more modern-style clothing may be worn outside the home. THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA MAJOR POLITICAL CHARACTERISTICS
-The colonial influence of the late nineteenth century and the continuing American and European economic and military presence in Israel and a number of Arab states have contributed to widespread resentment of Western political ideas and foreign policy.
-But Western technology, educational systems, and business practices have taken root among the region's countries and peoples, and offer a promising foundation upon which future cooperation and positive interaction can develop.
-Despite the existence of an umbrella political organization in the form of the Arab League, Arab politics are highly variable.
-Monarchies (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain); one-party, secular states (Algeria, Syria, and until recently Tunisia, Egypt, and Iraq); a military dictatorship (Yemen), a new democracy struggling to replace an overthrown dictator (Libya); a religious community-based republic (Lebanon);
-the influential Islamic advocates of religiously based governance; and the relatively powerless secularist proponents of multiparty democracy all vie for attention and compete for influence. -In the area of Midelt, less than 65 miles (100 kilometers) further inland, average annual precipitation is less than 10 inches (250 millimeters). A similar contrast exists between Beirut, Lebanon on the Mediterranean coast and Damascus, Syria only 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the east. Beirut averages 37 inches (940 millimeters) of rainfall per year, while Damascus is functionally an oasis that receives less than 9 inches (230 millimeters) annually.
-The intervening Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges absorb much of the moisture produced by the winter storms passing through the Mediterranean, leaving the interior regions dry but creating humid zones along the coast and in the uplands.
- more densely populated settings include upland areas that receive substantial rain and have cooler temperatures, coastal lowlands watered by runoff from the uplands, inland plateaus exposed to seasonal storms, and oases.
-Much of the region, particularly the portion bordering the Mediterranean Sea, experiences a dry summer subtropical climate with less than 20 inches (500 millimeters) of annual rainfall
-Where mountains are high, this precipitation falls as snow and remains on the ground throughout the winter. THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA CURRENT AND PAST CHALLENGES
-The most notable is the struggle between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, who are supported by most of the region's Arab states.
-Unresolved, this conflict impacts the domestic politics of Middle Eastern and North African countries as well as regional and international relations and adversely influences economic investment strategies, development opportunities, and human rights practices. Major ethnic divides within many states in the region further magnify these issues.
--the contrasts are evident in levels of technological development, the extent of dependence on oil for national revenues, cultural differences, religious divisions, the influence of militant Islamic factions, ethnic diversity, and uneven progress toward stable societies.
-Interstate rivalries are another area of conflict and sparked the inconclusive eight-year war in the 1980s between Iraq and Iran over resources, territorial claims, and regional leadership. -Only 2.4 percent of the region's land surface contains forest, mostly found in the uplands. Maintaining existing forest habitats in the Atlas ranges of the Maghreb, as well as the coastal mountain uplands of the eastern Mediterranean and south coastal mountains of the Black and Caspian Seas bordering Turkey and Iran is important, but difficult to achieve.
-Limited ground cover, whether of trees or grass, means increased potential for erosion.
-Substantial rural-to-urban migration means abandoned fields and a loss of erosion protection.
-Tourism, often promoted in many areas as a boost to local economies, can have undesirable impacts on local resources as well. Particularly threatened are Red Sea coral reefs, which are subject to physical damage from diving and are often swamped with sediments and effluents produced by nearby residential and industrial areas.
-Offshore fishing resources of the region's oceans often are indirectly hurt by development efforts.
-Arab Spring refers to the democratic uprisings that arose independently and spread across the Arab world in 2011. The movement originated in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly took hold in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
- The Arabs occupy the central core of the region, having spread out from their ancestral homeland in the Arabian Peninsula. Large minorities of Turks, Persians, Kurds, Berbers, and Nilo-Hamitic groups are found in more peripheral locations.
-ews of European origin and from North Africa and the Middle East migrated to Israel after it gained independence in 1948, a process of return that continues today from diverse sources.
-Nearly 70 percent of the population in the Middle East and North Africa now lives in urban areas, although a number of countries still have very large rural populations: Yemen (71%), Egypt (57%), Syria (46%), and Morocco (42%). -The MENA region has a higher level of urbanization than many other regions, including China, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
-Urban areas grew rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century, and some of the region's cities—most notably Cairo, Egypt; Istanbul, Turkey; and Tehran, Iran—now rank among the world's 50 largest urban areas.
-The subregion also includes the smaller states of the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, as well as Turkey, a unique Middle Eastern country in that it possesses a physical foothold in Europe, has associated membership status in the European Union, and seeks full membership. All of the countries in this broad spatial and political grouping share strong historic ties to Europe. THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA POPULATION STATISTICS
-While Arabs are the largest ethnic group of North Africa and the Middle East, the region contains numerous ethnic minorities. Most of these are found in the higher mountainous areas where physical isolation has protected them from cultural assimilation
-In southeastern Turkey reside large numbers of Kurds (about 18%of the Turkish population), with smaller numbers of Arabs (mostly around Adana on the Turkish Mediterranean coast near Syria), Greeks and Jews (in and around Istanbul), Circassians and Georgians (in the northeast), and Armenians (in the southeast) also part of Turkey's ethnic mix.
-Concentrated in Israel, Jews constitute 76 percent of that country's population.
-The remainder of Israel's population is composed of largely Muslim Arabs (21%), and an immigrant population whose ethnic and religious origins are not known.
-Armenians survivors are dispersed throughout the region and are prominent in urban areas, particularly in Lebanon and Syria. Circassians,
-Muslim refugees from nineteenth-century Russian imperialism in the Caucasus Mountains, are found in Syria and Jordan. -Many of the Gulf States, including Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, have transient populations of non-Arab foreign workers (Iranians, Pakistanis, Bengalis, Filipinos, and Indians), as well as Palestinians, Egyptians, and Yemenis, living among them.
-In North Africa much of the indigenous population has, over many centuries, been assimilated through the adoption of the Arabic language and culture. Still, Berber speakers remain a significant minority, numbering more than 35 percent of Morocco's total population
- The densely populated Nile River oasis meanders northward from Sudan to the Mediterranean coast, and a similar configuration outlines the courses of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers across southeastern Turkey, Syria, and Iraq to the Persian Gulf. Equally dense populations inhabit the southern coastlines and coastal plains of the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian seas as well as the foothills and valleys of coastal mountain ranges. Much more spatially limited concentrations occur in oases deep in the interior. Considerably sparser population densities appear on semiarid interior plateaus such as central Anatolia and the High Plateau in the interior Atlas Mountains of Algeria. Vast population voids typify expansive areas of sand and rock in the Sahara in North Africa, the Rub al-Khali (Empty Quarter) in Saudi Arabia, and the central desert zones of Iran. AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA (SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA) MAJOR CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
-The legacy of colonialism and the diffusion of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa have profoundly influenced the religious landscape of Africa South of the Sahara
-Islam is concentrated in the northern Sahelian regions, the Horn, and the coastal corridors of Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Significant Muslim minorities also exist in the central regions of several West African states, resulting in recent insurrections in northern Nigeria and northern Mali from extremist Islamic groups.
-Christianity is widespread in the central and southern sections of Africa
-A strong Roman Catholic presence in the former Portuguese-ruled territories of Angola and Mozambique and former Belgian-controlled Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC;
-An Anglican presence in the former British holdings of Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya; and Presbyterians common in Malawi.
-Judaism had a strong following in the Gondar region of Ethiopia, where blacks, who came to be called Falashas (black Jews), were converted to the faith by Semitic Jews who emigrated to Ethiopia between the first and seventh centuries
-Buddhism and Hinduism, are practiced by small numbers of people in southern and eastern Africa.
-In the Congo, Nzambi is the all-powerful creator of the sky, earth, and man. God is perceived as having two sides: Nzambi Watanda (God above), who is good, and Nzambi Wamutsede (God below), who is wicked. -Traditional African religion ascribes to a hierarchical order, with God at the top, followed by ancestral spirits and divinities, human beings, animals, plants, and inanimate objects.
-Departed ancestors are believed to serve as intermediaries between the living community and God. Deities and ancestral spirits are honored in sacrifices and special ceremonies.
-Small temples and spirit shrines to honor nature gods dwelling in rivers, mountains, hills, and lakes are commonplace.
-Each member of the extended family has obligations and ties to the other members. The family includes both the living and the dead.
-In traditional African societies, marriage is a union, not of two individuals, but of two extended families. Marriage is perceived as a civil contract between two families. This contract calls for the transfer of goods or money, or both, from the bridegroom's family to the bride's family in the form of bride wealth.
-The extended family, respect for the elderly, socialization between the elderly and the young, and the significance of ancestors are all attributes that most Africans share.
-Another important trait is the role played by cultural symbols as a means of expression (Adinkra symbols of greatness/leadership, harmony, governance, experience, and wisdom. The colors of the Kente cloth also have symbolic relevance. Gold/yellow signifies royalty and wealth; blue indicates harmony and love; green denotes nurturing of the land, growth, and spiritual revival; and red illustrates a heightened political and spiritual awareness.) AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA (SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA) MAJOR ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS
- Although politically independent, many African nations continue to depend economically on their former colonizers for trade, technology, and other goods and services, which discourages economic diversification. -Another challenge to economic development is the fact that most African economies are still monocultural—that is, they rely on one or two primary products for export revenue.
-A sectoral imbalance also persists, with weak internal linkages between agriculture and industry, both of which focus on exporting products to overseas markets rather than providing for local needs.
-Creating linkages between key economic sectors within a country is a prerequisite for developing a self-sufficient and self-sustaining economy.
-Agriculture
-export of cash crops such as cocoa, coffee, tea, sisal, oil palm, and peanuts, and the production of raw materials for the urban-industrial sector.
- The average per capita GNI PPP for sub-Saharan Africa was $2,238.
- Immense variations among countries ranged from a high of $25,620 in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea
-$14,550 in diamond-wealthy Botswana to a low of $340 in conflict-ridden DRC. -Other countries at the high end of the economic scale include South Africa, Gabon, and Namibia. These countries are well endowed with oil and strategic mineral resources, although the uneven distribution of wealth within each country is problematic
-Exports from AGOA-eligible countries have grown by more than $65 billion and over 300,000 jobs have been created in Africa.
-Microcredit and microfinancing opportunities are helping groups in Africa to open small businesses and credit accounts.
-In situations where stronger banknotes, such as the U.S. dollar or the euro, have an important local economic function, coins for these currencies are almost nonexistent. Mobile phone airtime is increasingly used to fill this gap. The air-time "funds" that a phone owner accumulates instead of small change have real value because they can be transferred to other phones, exchanged for cash or goods in stores, or used to pay small debts. New start-up companies have emerged to promote and facilitate these transfers and extend phone technology into economic activities formerly dependent on face-to-face contact.
-The Southern African Development Community (SADC) was founded in 1980 to reduce southern African dependency on South Africa for rail, air, and port links, imports of manufactured goods, and electrical power.
-Angola is responsible for energy while Botswana coordinates agricultural research, livestock production, and animal disease control.
- Malawi coordinates inland fisheries, forestry, and wildlife; Namibia takes care of marine fisheries and resources;
- South Africa manages finance and investment;
-Tanzania handles industry and trade; and Zambia coordinates mining, employment, and labor.
-South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe dominate intra-SADC trade, accounting for more than 75 percent of exports and more than 65 percent of imports. -In the northern regions of West, Central, and East Africa, a third element, Islam, further complicates the political and cultural environments. In Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia, in particular, Islamic fundamentalism has emerged as a potent force.
-The legacies of colonialism are still felt in the daily lives of Africans.
-Ethiopia and Tanzancia are socialists.
-Botswana is a multiparty democracy that has held free and fair elections since its independence in 1966.
-Modern Zimbabwe, formerly known as Southern Rhodesia, gained its independence in 1980. Southern Rhodesia had opted for internal self-government rather than succumb to Afrikaner domination under a union with South Africa.
-While the majority of African countries support democratic reform, Zimbabwe's 2013 election serves as a grim reminder of the country's history of an uncompromising, nonconformist political dictatorship. -Cities and villages that border Africa's large inland lakes and extensive coastlines benefit from the modifying maritime effects, in contrast to the hotter and drier continental locations of the African Sahel. --Regions located near the lower latitudes of the equator are much warmer and wetter than the higher latitude regions of Southern Africa.
-Mean monthly temperatures in rain-forest zones remain above 64.4°F (18°C) all year, and substantial precipitation occurs in every month, with most stations averaging between 60 and 80 inches (1,500-2,000 millimeters) annually. Abundant rainfall in tropical rain-forest regions is associated with high temperatures, low atmospheric pressures, and often luxuriant plant growth.
-dusty and hazy conditions across much of West Africa.
-Humid tropical rain forests, subhumid tropical savannas, semiarid steppes, and deserts. AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA (SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA) LANGUAGES
-One of the most intriguing aspects of sub-Saharan Africa's cultural geography is the more than 1,000 languages that exist in the region.
-Most of these languages do not have a written form or tradition, and approximately 40 are spoken by 1 million or more people.
-Linguistic scholars have identified four major linguistic families: Niger-Kordofanian , Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, and Afro-Asiatic (Semitic-Hamitic).
-Niger-Kordofanian (spoken by 150 million. stretches across half of sub-Saharan Africa, extending from West Africa to the equatorial and southern regions. It includes the west Atlantic languages of Wolof and Fula in Senegambia; the Guinean languages of Kru (Liberia), Akan (Ghana), Yoruba (western Nigeria), and Igbo (eastern Nigeria); the central and eastern Sudanese languages of Azande (Central African Republic) and Banda; and the most widely spoken subfamily, the Bantu ) -The Kordofanian (The Kordofanian branch is centered in a small area in the Nuba hills of Sudan and consists of about 20 languages. )
- Nilo-Saharan(west-to-east direction, from the Songhai language in southwest Niger to the Nilotic languages of Nuer and Dinka in southern Sudan and Luo and Masai in southwestern Kenya. It also includes the Saharan languages of Kanuri (which can be traced to the Kanem and Bornu kingdoms of Lake Chad), Kanembu, and Teda.)
-Khoisan (confined to the Kalahari Desert region in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. )
-Afro-Asiatic (Semitic-Hamitic).found in sub-Saharan Africa in Mauritania and the East African Horn, where Semitic languages such as Amharic and Tigre are spoken. This language family also includes Cushitic languages such as Somali and Mbugu (Tanzania), and Chadic and Berber languages.
-the Malay-Polynesian family was introduced to Madagascar about 2,000 years ago,
-while Afrikaans, a derivative of Dutch, has Indo-European origins dating back to 1602 when the Boers arrived in South Africa.
-Lingua franca (Swahili, Hausa, English, French and Portuguese) -Rapid urbanization has left many cities with inadequate water supply and sewage disposal systems, limited solid-waste disposal mechanisms, and inefficient public transportation. The basic infrastructure of roads, highways, and other public services is lacking in most cities as well.
-Improvements in meeting the basic human needs of sub-Saharan Africa's peoples must be achieved through better nutrition, improved medical care, more equitable income distribution, increased levels of education and employment, and expanded opportunities for women
-The Sahel ("shore of the Sahara") is a highly variable environment that poses many challenges to the people who live there. Recurring droughts, poor soils, often sparse and degraded vegetation, epidemics, and famines are common occurrences. AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA (SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA) HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
-Many aspects of Africa's native cultures were lost or destroyed during the colonial era, and numerous misconceptions about Africa arose in Western societies. It became habitual for colonialists to deny almost any degree of social or political achievement to Africans themselves. Some scholars at the time even questioned whether native technologies were really indigenous to Africa or whether they had been imported by external agents.
-The earliest known civilizations of Africa emerged in the central part of the Nile River Valley One of the most notable was the black kingdom of Kush and its capital Meroe, which flourished from about 2000 B.C. to the fourth century A.D. Meroe was largely influenced by the Nubian Kingdom.
-Other prominent cities in this region of East Africa were Axum, a metropolis of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, and the Red Sea port of Adulis.
-Prominent civilizations that emerged between 700 and 1600 A.D. in the West African savanna were Kumbi (the political center) and Saleh (the commercial center) in Ghana, Timbuktu and Djenne in Mali, and Gao in Songhai.
-Most cities in Africa today are colonial creations.
-PORTUGUESE
- After Portugal's initial contact in 1420, the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch followed.
- Lacking sufficient laborers, the period of enslavement began as New World Europeans turned to African slaves to work the huge estates. Estimates of the number of Africans transported across the Atlantic Ocean range from 8 to 12 million people. - Lacking sufficient laborers, the period of enslavement began as New World Europeans turned to African slaves to work the huge estates. Estimates of the number of Africans transported across the Atlantic Ocean range from 8 to 12 million people.
- The impact of slavery on African societies included the disruption of cultural institutions; the reduction of industries, crafts, and other forms of manufacturing; and the increased incidence of tribal wars—prisoners were often sold as slaves.
- The major sources of African slaves were the Senegambia coastal region between Guinea-Bissau and Liberia, and Congo and Angola. Other key source areas included the Dahomey and Yoruba kingdoms, the Gold Coast (Ghana), the Niger delta, and Mozambique.
-The French dominated West Africa in the late colonial era, and the British ruled East Africa. Belgium controlled the Congo Basin, and Portugal governed portions of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts of Southern Africa. Liberia and Ethiopia remained independent.
-While these economic indicators may seem gloomy, there are encouraging signs
- Business climates are improving in such countries as Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, and Rwanda
-the middle class is growing throughout the region; -trade and investment relationships are increasing with Brazil, China, and India
-the number of democratic governments is growing; and expanding economies recently have recorded economic growth rates in excess of 6 percent per year AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA (SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA) POPULATION STATISTICS
About 346 million people, 38 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's total population, now live in urban areas.
-20 sub-Saharan African countries have populations of less than 5 million, and half have populations under 10 million. Only nine countries have populations of more than 25 million, specifically, in rank order, Nigeria, Ethiopia, DRC, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and Ghana.
-The region's population is concentrated in two major zones of dense settlement: the West African coastal belt stretching from Dakar (Senegal) to Libreville (Gabon); and a north-south belt stretching from the Ethiopian highlands down through Lake Victoria, the copper belt of DRC and Zambia, and to the Witwatersrand region of South Africa
- Three broad, sparsely populated zones include, from north to south, the Sahel region extending from Dakar in the west to Mogadishu in the east, the west-central forest regions of DRC and Gabon, and the arid/semiarid region of southwest Africa.
-These spatial distributions coincide with environmental (vegetation, soil, climate, topography), developmental (levels of urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural development), and sociopolitical characteristics (oppressive regimes, ethnic disputes, resettlement schemes).
-The West African coastal strip contains most of West Africa's urban, economic, and political centers. Other economic centers, such as the copper belt of DRC and Zambia, the diamond and gold mining centers of South Africa's Witwatersrand region around Johannesburg, and the rich agricultural lands of the Lake Victoria borderlands, attract large population clusters as well. -Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have the highest fertility and mortality rates in the world, along with the highest proportion of young dependents.
-Families have an average of five children, although there is considerable variation by region, socioeconomic status, and place of residence (rural versus urban).
-While the majority of countries continue to have high fertility rates, most countries in Southern Africa have below-average rates.
-In South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, comprehensive family planning programs, coupled with improvements in female literacy, have slowed birth rates to 2.4, 2.8, and 4.1, respectively.
-Saharan Africa's population is most concentrated in the Guinea coast of West Africa, the highlands of Ethiopia, the Great Lakes of East Africa, and the southeast coast of Southern Africa. Dry zones are sparsely settled.
-Nairobi's high-rise city center serves as the commercial and communications hub of East Africa. Nairobi is home to more than 3 million people, most of whom live in sprawling squatter settlements.
-Genocide in Rwanda and Burundi destabilized the east and central African region, killed more than half a million people, and displaced countless refugees. The Tutsi and Hutu, who share the same language and traditions and have lived in the same territory for more than 500 years, were involved in a tragic genocidal war
-Of South Africa's 51.1 million inhabitants, 79 percent are African, 9 percent European, 9 percent "colored" or of mixed race, and 3 percent Indian or Asian. - The southwestern sections of Africa are rimmed by the Cape Fold Mountains, which rise to about 6,500 feet (1,980 meters), and the Karoo rock series, which contains coal deposits.
--INLAND FISHING
-biomass (wood, charcoal, agricultural residues, and animal waste) and oil, and to a much lesser extent on electricity, natural gas, and coal
-cocoa, rubber, bananas, maize, cassava, sorghum, and millet.
-There is a strong correlation between population distribution and the location of manufacturing activities. Manufacturing tends to be concentrated in the most densely settled and urbanized regions. AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA (SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA)
MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
The mainland countries can be divided into 4 subregions: West, East, Central, and Southern Africa
-Assets include majestic mountains, many minerals embedded in pre-Cambrian rocks, rich volcanic soils in East Africa, scenic and economically valuable lakes, the biodiversity and commercial value of rain forests, and great hydroelectric power potential
-straight coastlines that limit opportunities for natural harbors and narrow continental shelves that restrict potential offshore oil exploration and fish habitats. Leached soils in many rain-forest areas inhibit agricultural development.
-tropical Africa consists of a great plateau that tilts downward from east to west. This plateau is fractured and scoured by several major river systems, leaving large gorges and undulating surfaces.
-East Africa has several prominent mountain landscapes, such as the extensive East African Plateau, which features the two highest points in Africa: Mount Kilimanjaro (19,340 feet; 5,895 meters) and Mount Kenya (17,057 feet; 5,199 meters)
- Further north is the Ethiopian Massif, which has its highest point at Ras Dashen (15,157 feet; 4,620 meters). -East Africa also features some extensive plains, such as the Serengeti Plains of Tanzania.
- West and Central Africa are not entirely low-lying regions. Mount Cameroon (13,435 feet; 4,095 meters), the Jos Plateau (5,840 feet; 1,780 meters) in Nigeria, and the Fouta Djallon Highlands of Guinea are examples of major uplands that rise above the surrounding plateau.
-In Southern Africa, the plateau is framed by a narrow coastal plain. The plateau reaches its highest point in the eastern sections where the Drakensberg Mountains (over 11,000 feet; 3,350 meters) are located. The plateau slopes downward toward the interior savanna and steppe plains and the arid regions of the Kalahari and Namib deserts in the west - The southwestern sections of Africa are rimmed by the Cape Fold Mountains, which rise to about 6,500 feet (1,980 meters), and the Karoo rock series, which contains coal deposits.
-Another unique aspect of the region's physiography is the East African Rift Valley which begins in the north with the Red Sea and extends through Ethiopia to the Lake Victoria region, where it divides into eastern and western segments and continues southward through Lake Malawi (Nyasa) and Mozambique
-Southern Africa has large desert regions with unique sets of microenvironmental characteristics.
-The Namib is a cool coastal desert fronting the Benguela Current of the southern Atlantic Ocean.
-Especially unique are the crater lakes and the elongated lakes that occupy deep trenches in the rift valleys, such as Lake Malawi (Nyasa), Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Turkana. Lake Victoria, the world's second largest lake in terms of area, is nestled between the two arms of the rift valley.
-The rift belt, along with the offshore islands of Réunion and the Comoros in the Indian Ocean, as well as the Canaries in the Atlantic Ocean, constitute the major volcanic regions of Africa. There are several explosive craters around the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo border.
-The interior plateau is drained by major river drainage basins—the Nile, Congo (Zaire), and Niger.
-Southern Africa's Kalahari Basin features two major physiographic landscapes: the Okavango Delta and the Makgadikgadi (Makarikari) salt pans. The Kalahari Basin lacks surface water in most of its southern sections. Its northern portion receives perennial stream flow mainly from the Okavango River, which rises from the highlands of Angola and drains into the dry expanses of Botswana, forming a vast inland delta that covers about 400,000 acres (162,000 hectares) . This region is a haven for one of Africa's most diverse wildlife areas and is developing its ecotourism potential. SOUTH ASIA MAJOR CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
-Because South Asia is primarily rural and the majority of the people are subsistence farmers, poverty is greatest in the countryside, despite the dramatic increases in agricultural output achieved through the Green Revolution
-Another characteristic distinguishing South Asia from the rest of Asia is the sometimes divisive roles of ethnicity, religion, and politics in the economic development process. Cultural diversity is not necessarily a barrier to forging national unity, but when differences are exploited by competing political groups whose interests do not address the well-being of the larger community, development is slowed.
-South Asia is also characterized by one of the world's oldest civilizations when Hinduism was first established, and through subsequent invasions Islam was introduced. Post-World War II independence brought the breakup of South Asia into five different states primarily based on the distribution of Hindu and Muslim faiths, plus two others that were not colonial possessions.
-Hinduism, the world's oldest major religion, which now dominates India
The caste system institutionalized both social status and economic roles within the larger society, and only through cyclical rebirth, or reincarnation, is mobility to a higher caste believed possible
-To achieve this upward spiritual mobility, one's soul requires the accumulation of good karma, or good deeds, over many generations. - At the apex of this highly stratified socioeconomic system is the religious Brahman caste. One group, known as the untouchables or dalit (meaning broken, depressed, or downtrodden), is relegated to performing economic activities deemed dirty or polluting and stands altogether outside the caste system.
-South Asia is also the source region of Buddhism, another major world religion.
-As with the Aryans earlier, Islam entered South Asia through the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush. Virtually all the population of the Indus River Valley converted to Islam which then spread into the Gangetic Plain, where some of the Hindu population converted. Islam was embraced more widely further east in the lower Ganges River Plain that today makes up much of Bangladesh.
-Hinduism dominates in most of India, while Islam is the principal religion of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Buddhism prevails in most of Sri Lanka and in portions of the northern Himalayan regions. Sikhism, Christianity, and Jainism form scattered enclaves.
-As one of seven Hindu holy cities in India, pilgrims come each year to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges. Originating in the Himalayas, the river's waters symbolically represent the purity of heaven and thus wash away the worldly sins of religious pilgrims. Varanasi is also a spiritual center for Buddhists because Buddha formulated his principles in this vicinity around 500 B.C. SOUTH ASIA MAJOR ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
-South Asia (1.64 billion) has passed East Asia (1.58 billion) as the most populous world region. High population concentrations do not of themselves cause poverty or weak economic development, for people are both producers and consumers of resources. But when human productivity is low, high population densities frequently are associated with widespread poverty.
-he South Asian tradition of state control of industry does not provide the required competitive environment and economic growth to absorb the huge pool of surplus labor, though India has made significant strides by privatizing industry and engaging the capitalist forces of globalization.
-Some of the country's industrial regions have been transformed because of substantial foreign direct investment coupled with private domestic investment that has thrust them onto the global economic stage
-Others remain focused on heavy industries in an environment of continued government regulation.
-India contains some of the most populous cities in Asia and the world, and although globalization is transforming these urban landscapes to express newfound wealth, far too many inhabitants remain part of a growing urban underclass.
-Since the early 1990s the industrial sector has grown dramatically as a result of the government promoting both domestic and foreign private investment, more private-sector control, and more market-oriented policies.
-Progress has been slow: in 2011, industry accounted for only 29 percent of GDP (compared to 47 percent in China) and manufacturing accounted for only 17 percent of the total workforce. India's economy has not relied on exporting manufactured consumer goods to the same extent as China; its industries are anchored in information technology and business services that are skills-based and capital intensive but not substantially labor-intensive. Information technology industries make up about 7 percent of India's GDP, but only 2 percent of the country's workforce.
- India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, experiencing a healthy 7.3 percent average annual GDP growth rate from 2000-2010, and was the world's fourth largest economy in 2010. India's GNI PPP (Gross National Income in Purchasing Power Parity) increased dramatically from $1,649 in 1995 to $3,400 by 2010.
-The economic sector that received the largest FDI from 1990-2009 were services (31%). -The greater Mumbai region attracts the most investment, followed by New Delhi, the state of Gujarat north of Mumbai, and the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
-Although dwarfed by inflowing FDI, outflowing FDI by Indian corporations has dramatically grown as well.
-Between 2000 and 2010, FDI outflow increased from US$514 million to US$14.5 billion.
-The largest Indian multinational corporation is the Tata Group, a company with diverse overseas investments including automobiles, chemicals, and telecommunications.
- Mumbai has become India's most cosmopolitan city, and symbolizes the new era of national economic growth linked to the global economy. Modern skyscrapers, hotels, and apartment buildings dot the cityscape, evidence of a highly trained workforce of professionals and entrepreneurs flush with new investment capital. The city is India's busiest international seaport as well as the country's primary air-transport gateway.
-Mumbai is also the headquarters of major domestic corporations, the national stock exchange, and the center of the Hindi-language film industry known as "Bollywood."
-Mumbai still boasts a healthy industrial base in automobiles and petrochemicals. But the driving economic force today is service industries such as telecommunications, real estate, banking, insurance, and other business services.
-Despite Mumbai's prosperity, a significant slice of the city's residents are poor rural-to-urban migrants, as well as those left behind by Mumbai's engagement with the global economy, which has resulted in the closing of state-owned industry
-One of the most dynamic urban-industrial regions in India, Bengaluru is among the global centers of information technology.
- India's national capital of New Delhi is not a national industrial center. It is the center of government power and home to some of the best world-class universities in the country, in addition to a broad spectrum of industries. SOUTH ASIA CURRENT AND PAST CHALLENGES
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
-Air pollution is the most serious atmospheric environmental problem, particularly across the northern part of the region. Both in urban areas and broad swaths of densely settled rural areas, the skies are obscured by a pea soup-like haze
-Pollution levels are especially high during the dry monsoon season when the lack of rain to clean the air is coupled with descending air associated with a dominant high pressure cell.
-Pollution sources include the usual culprits of dirty coal-fired plants and leaded gasoline. Often ignored are microscopic, suspended particles that originate not only from fossil fuel use but also from burning biomass—wood and cow dung used by the poor for both urban and rural cooking stoves.
-These fine particles enter the lungs and the bloodstream to cause much higher rates of heart disease, asthma, and lung disease.
- In some urban areas the levels of suspended particulates are 5 to 10 times higher than the World Health Organization deems acceptable.
- Women and children who spend the majority of time in the indoor spaces of home are particularly vulnerable.
-In Bangladesh, some 90 percent of the population use some form of bio-fuel for cooking, and particulate matter, along with malnutrition and unsafe drinking water, are leading causes of premature death.
-Sustainable water is the most serious challenge to economic and social development. Growing water scarcity is directly linked to rapid population growth.
-With approximately 21 percent of the world's population and the second highest rate of natural population increase of any world region, South Asia possesses only 5 percent of the world's renewable water resources.
-Although rapid population growth is an important factor in explaining water scarcity, poor infrastructure, government water policies, outdated water extraction technologies, the interstate politics of water, and wet monsoonal patterns and global climate change also affect sustainability. -The strongest challenge to national unity originated in Punjab, where Sikh separatists, seeking an independent "Khalistan" in the 1960s, forced New Delhi to redraw boundaries so that Punjab became a Sikh majority state.
-Under a neoliberal market-based economic system, government-subsidized food and social service programs have been cut, forcing women to spend more time on earning income to make up for the increased cost of food and social services once provided by the government.
-In addition, as agroprocessing industries have become more mechanized in response to greater international competition, female agricultural laborers, who depend on these critical off-season employment opportunities, are losing their jobs.
-Increasing rural debt among small farmers is another concern. The social marginalization of poor farmers, debt associated with switching to genetically modified seeds, and the risks and costs of shifting from food to cash crops have resulted in more than 200,000 suicides among farmers since the late 1990s.
-India's promising economic future will be severely constrained unless it solves these basic institutional and infrastructural energy problems. Approximately one-third of Indians lack electricity because they are too scattered and isolated to be reached by conventional transmission lines.
-Without money for durable housing, tens of millions of India's urban poor live in substandard dwellings that vary from single-room rentals to makeshift shelters built of assorted discarded materials.
-Because many migrants live on land that does not belong to them on the outskirts of the city, their squatter settlements resemble a "village in the city"
-Squatter settlements are common at railroad right-of-ways, riverbanks, coastal margins, land prone to flooding, and even open spaces adjacent to airport runways.
-Public services such as electricity, sewerage, and clean water are uncommon.
-More than 60 percent of the urban population lacks municipal sewerage and water systems, leading to high levels of intestinal diseases, particularly among children, because water extracted from near-surface sources with hand pumps is often contaminated.
- At the bottom of the poverty chain is a large pool of sidewalk or pavement dwellers who do not even have a roof over their heads. Mumbai is home to 1.2 million pavement dwellers. India's recent economic growth has produced ever wider disparities between the urban rich and poor. SOUTH ASIA HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
-Following a succession of politically and economically powerful empires, South Asia was transformed by British colonial rule.
-Beginning about 2000 B.C. a new culture group, the Aryans, invaded from the west to produce a mixed Indo-Aryan civilization, which at first was primarily nomadic but adopted sedentary agriculture over time. The Indo-Aryan culture subsequently spread eastward into the then forested regions of the Ganges River Valley, where large urban settlements were established. Indo-Aryans also introduced Hinduism, the world's oldest major religion, which now dominates India SOUTH ASIA RESOURCES
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
-The most important is cattle, which are rarely consumed for their meat because of the traditional Hindu taboo against consuming beef. Dairy products in the form of milk, yogurt, and "ghee" (clarified butter), however, are important sources of animal protein.
-cattle dung is gathered for cooking fuel in many regions where fuelwood is scarce. Cattle are used for plowing and for short-distance transport.
- Cattle hides sustain India's thriving leather and tanning industries.
-milled rice, various edible oils, and chickpeas and lentils,
-Rice farming dominates along the western Malabar coast and in humid eastern India. The more drought-tolerant wheat and millet prevail in the more arid central and western zones. EAST ASIA MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
-China (People's Republic of China) North of China is medium-sized and landlocked Mongolia, to the northeast are the small-sized peninsular states of North Korea and South Korea, and to the southeast is the island state of Taiwan (Republic of China), to which China lays claim politically. - Also included in the region is the archipelagic country of Japan.
- In many respects, East Asia shares landform and climate attributes with the lower 48 of the United States as well.
-China and the United States' east-west similarity extends to eastern river basins and uplands contrasted with drier, but elevated uplands and highlands in the west
-Loess Plateau, an elevated tableland 4,000-5,000 feet above sea level situated between the Ordos Desert and the North China Plain.
- Loess is a term used to describe a fine, yellow, dust-like soil deposited thousands of years ago by winds originating in the Mongolian grasslands to the north of China.
- Loess is very fertile, but at the same time highly susceptible to erosion. resulted in soil carried away to streams flowing into the Huang He, appropriately translated as the "Yellow River" because of the yellow hue of its loess sediments.
-Surrounded by high mountains and plateaus, the Sichuan Basin is densely inhabited by an agricultural population situated primarily on the Chengdu Plain. It was the northwestern mountainous edge of the basin that experienced a horrific 7.9 magnitude earthquake in May 2008;
- To cultivate on steep slopes, terracing is essential if erosion is to be controlled. Where terracing is absent, heavily dissected slopes often are the result.
-The middle plain is surrounded by numerous low mountains and hills, dotted by many shallow lakes. These lakes act as flood reservoirs for the Chang Jiang during the high-water summer monsoon season. The lower plain of the Chang Jiang sits less than 10 feet above sea level, and this wetland environment is characterized by a patchwork of rice paddies and fishponds, laced by a dense network of streams and canals -Yunnan Plateau, which occupies the environmental transition zone between the cold Tibetan Plateau and eastern monsoon China. With elevations ranging from 5,000 to 9,000 feet , this dissected upland is laced by mountainous spurs of the Tibetan Plateau.
-Between the mountain ridges are deep river gorges and small upland valleys dotted with agricultural settlements.
-Stretching along China's southeast coast are the Southeast Uplands, which average 3,000-4,000 feet (900-1,200 meters). With rugged hills and low Although threatened by deforestation, the surrounding uplands are China's most important source of timber.
-Mongolia's landforms can be divided into two generalized regions. Much of the southern half of the country is a broad flat or undulating elevated surface; the most southern stretches comprise the Gobi Desert with the southeast being short or tall grassland.
-In the far northwest are the tall Altai Mountains and the lower and more eroded Hangayn and Tian Shan Mountains in north-central Mongolia. North and South Korea occupy a peninsula with rugged, but not extremely elevated north-south mountains occupying the eastern two-thirds of both countries.
- Japan, a long north to south archipelago, was created by the meeting of four tectonic plates: the Pacific and Philippine plates, which are subducted or thrust under the Eurasian and North American plates, create crustal folds that express themselves as mountains.
- A young and dynamic geological environment, these mountains and hills comprise 80 percent of Japan's land surface.
-Mountains are rugged, with steep slopes, but they are not very high by world standards. Most peaks are below 6,000 feet , but 10 peaks higher than 9,000 feet Japanese Alps in central Honshu.
-Mount Fuji, perhaps the world's most famous volcanic cone, reaches up to 12,388 feet.
-The balance of Japan's land surface is composed of flat surfaces found either as terraces at the downslope edge of mountains or along relatively narrow coastal plains
- Most of the largest pockets of flat surfaces are found along the Pacific side of Honshu Island.
-Taiwan too is formed at tectonic plate margins with a mountainous east coast and a broad north to south plain along the western third of the island.
-The Korean peninsula is divided into the countries of North Korea and South Korea, with widely diverging agricultural and industrial development. EAST ASIA MAJOR CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
- China has heavily influenced the religious, philosophical, and linguistic traditions of all East Asian countries except Mongolia.
- Unlike the regions of South Asia and Southeast Asia, Western colonial rule was rarely imposed in East Asia.
- Almost 2,000 years of imperial rule came to an abrupt end with the arrival of Western merchants and militaries in the mid-nineteenth century and the surrender of sovereignty to Western economic interests in enclaves along China's coast.
- The breakdown of a unified China caused internal political fragmentation and the eventual rise of competing political visions of a modern China.
-Communists and Nationalists engaged in a protracted civil war that ended in a Communist victory after the defeat of the Japanese invasion in World War II.
-Chinese civilization is often referred to as the world's oldest surviving culture.
-This distinct culture was perceived by the Chinese themselves as being indigenously derived, without substantial external influences.
The Chinese, hemmed in by mountains to the north, west, and south and the Pacific Ocean to the east, came to think of themselves as the bearers of a superior civilization that possessed a deep sense of cultural unity.
- The Chinese rulers believed they lived in a special place, the Middle Kingdom or Zhongguo.
-From 1766 B.C. to A.D. 1912, 15 major dynasties ruled China, each important in its own right.
- During some dynasties, very important cultural, political, and economic behaviors emerged,
-Shang (1766-1122 B.C.), centered where the Huang He enters the North China Plain.
-Their contributions to Chinese cultural identity included the development of metal working and the distinctive character-based written language
- Most importantly, the Shang period marked the transformation of Chinese society from one based on egalitarian agricultural communities to one oriented toward socially and occupationally stratified urban centers.
- Government officials had the power to forcibly enlist peasants for unpaid labor during times of war or when government construction projects required large inputs of labor.
-The militaristic Zhou dynasty (1027-256 B.C.) originated farther upstream on the Huang He and established their capital at a site close to modern-day Xi'an.
- They extended the imperial domains southward beyond the Chang Jiang, farther west up the Huang He and Wei River valleys, as well as to the northeast.
-One of the most important cultural traditions that emerged during the end of the Zhou period was the ethical philosophy of Confucianism, based on the writings and teachings of Confucius.
- Confucianism emphasized that humans were moral by nature and that immoral behavior was a product of the loss of virtue by all.
- Confucius argued that authority within the government or family should not be based on formalized law and brute force punishment but rather on living a virtuous life characterized by obligations to others.
- Much like the philosophies of Socrates and Jesus, both of whom preached "man's moral duty to man," the teachings of Confucius constituted a new ethical system that has endured in East Asia to the present.
-The next dynasty to bring in a new imperial "order" was the Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.). ruled in the period during which China became a unified state and culture.
-The name China probably originated from the word Qin.
-The totalitarian Qin emperor Shih-huang-di forged a unified and spatially integrated state by dividing imperial territory into 40 military regions, each administered by a staff of officials who were appointed by the central government based on merit rather than birth. -He has become universally known for the thousands of terracotta warriors found buried with him to protect him in the afterlife.
-Another aspect of Qin rule that defined Chinese culture and space was the completion of the Great Wall, which served to spatially separate China's political core from the drier northwestern grasslands of Inner Asia which posed a barrier to Chinese settlement.
-Lower rainfall prevented sedentary agriculture, which was a defining characteristic for being Chinese.
-the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), a period so important that the Chinese today still refer to themselves as "people of the Han."
-As organizers of the first large-scale empire in East Asia, the militarily powerful Han conquered a wide corridor of far western lands in Inner Asia from pastoral nomadic kingdoms and brought these new territories within the Chinese orbit.
-The development of the great Silk Road indirectly connected the Chinese and Roman empires through traders who traveled Inner Asia as merchant intermediaries.
-The Han then turned their energies to the wetter southern frontier, where opportunities to secure an abundant source of food were greater. This south-central region became key to the economic and political power of the northern-centered government.
-Although constructed during the Sui dynasty that followed the Han, the 1,400-mile-long, between modern-day Hangzhou (just south of Shanghai) and the heart of the North China Plain, facilitated the much-increased trading of commodities among the regions of a now more integrated empire
-The Song, or Sung, dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) was a distinctive period of Chinese history because of the many social and economic development patterns that emerged. Having been forced south by Mongol invasions, the new Song capital was Hangzhou, a city of huge physical proportions that easily outsized the largest urban settlements in Europe at that time.
-The commercial success of the Song dynasty was characterized by the expanded use of early-ripening rice varieties, improvements in irrigation, and government-printed money that facilitated interregional trade throughout the Chang Jiang basin.
-For the first time in China's history, long-distance maritime trade developed, bringing Arab and Indian merchants and products to the coastal cities and encouraging Chinese merchants to establish trading networks in Southeast Asia.
-China in the thirteenth century resembled eighteenth-century Europe.
-The Song dynasty was replaced by the Mongol-based Yuan dynasty which in turn was replaced by the Ming dynasty, considered to be one of the most stable dynasties in China's history. Ming rule was then replaced by the Qing dynasty (A.D. 1644-1911), a non-Han Chinese, Manchu-led government from the forested region of present-day northeastern China and the last great Chinese dynasty.
-Among urban families child gender preference is far less important when compared to more traditional rural families
-Culturally, kimono-clad women, tea ceremonies, ancient Shinto temples, and centuries-old castles contrast with the punk culture of public spaces, fast-food outlets, anime, modern skyscrapers, and neon-emblazoned entertainment districts, all in close geographical proximity to each other in Japan's largest cities.
-Socially, Japan's institutions seem to value hierarchy and order in education, business relations, and the factory floor, but in many ways Japanese society is quite permissive.
-From their Kyushu base, it was the Yayoi who introduced sedentary agriculture (paddy rice in particular), bronze and iron technology for making farming tools and weapons, the ancient form of spoken Japanese, and a religion that eventually developed into Shintoism, which is anchored in a number of gods or kami EAST ASIA MAJOR ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS
Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
-China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea together comprise the world's most powerful and dynamic economic region.
-Beijing has accepted capitalism as the primary engine of economic growth, but within the context of strong government control.
-The implications of China's increasingly globalized economy include growing internal regional economic disparities, the transformation of agriculture and food habits, and massive population movements.
-As with agriculture, the primary objective of China's industrial policy has been to promote regional self-sufficiency, and the government was relatively successful in meeting that goal until the transformative policy reforms of the late 1970s.
-Since then, the influence of the global economy and the parallel rise of both domestic and foreign investment in manufacturing have made China a much richer nation.
-The Chinese government designated many coastal areas for accelerated industrial and economic development during the postreform era.
-hese "city-regions" of the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and the Bo Hai Rim have become territorial platforms for FDI and thus most engaged with the process of globalization. Together the three regions in 2010 accounted for 65 percent of national GDP and 70 percent of FDI.
-Despite economic prosperity at the national level, China's interior provinces lag seriously behind the coastal provinces.
-In 1997, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, often referred to as a "borrowed place on borrowed time," was returned to China.
-The nearby Portuguese colony of Macau was returned in 1999. Hong Kong's economic functions have changed over time.
- Before 1949 Hong Kong served as an important entrepôt, or transshipment point, for much of south China's external trade with the rest of the world.
-After the Communists gained power, Hong Kong lost most of its commercial links to mainland China, and the colony was forced to shift its economic energies to the manufacturing and export of cheap "Made in Hong Kong" consumer goods such as textiles, clothing, footwear, and electronics.
- It soon became a global manufacturing center fortuitously based on the post-1949 migration of mainland Chinese capitalists and refugees who provided an endless source of cheap labor.
-With much of its manufacturing base relocated to mainland China in the 1980s, Hong Kong's economy has become well-grounded in the higher-value service sector—banking, insurance, real estate, and shipping—which in 2011 represented 93 percent of GDP. Tourism, especially from the mainland, is the second most important income generator.
-With the older core of Shanghai in the foreground, the "new" Shanghai is located across the Huangpu River in Pudong where high-tech manufacturing and the growing financial service sectors are concentrated. Pudong symbolizes the globalized landscapes of urban China.
-Pearl River Delta PRD(Hong Kong), Yangtze River Delta YRD (Shanghai), The Bohai Rim Region BRR (Beijing) are the 3 top urban economic regions in China.
-Shenzhen (PRD) also is a major finance and transport logistics center, and supports one of China's two stock exchanges (the other is in Shanghai).
-Much of this investment is in the electronic products sector that includes telecom products, computer manufacturing, integrated circuits, auto electronics, and cell phones. Critical to the rise of the high-value electronics industry, particularly software and integrated circuit design, is the BRR's educated workforce or what might be called human capital. Beijing is home to three world-class universities and research institutes.
-In Shanghai (YRD) a substantial amount of FDI in the YRD region focuses on computers, mechanical and electrical products, and chemical products. -The PRD, YRD, and BRR urban-economic regions are characterized by an efficient transport infrastructure of limited-access expressways and high-speed trains, but interior China is not.
- The national government has embarked on an aggressive program of national highway and high-speed rail construction to link interior regions with the coast so that economic opportunities associated with globalization spread inland and promote national economic integration
- By 2020, the length of China's trunk highway network will reach 85,000 kilometers (53,000 miles). Plans call for all provincial capitals and cities of 200,000 or more people to be connected
-China is also investing in high-speed rail transport; tracks will more than double to almost 10,000 miles from 2012 to 2020.
-Trains with speeds up to 220 miles per hour will run on dedicated tracks while regular high-speed trains traveling up to 155 miles an hour will share tracks with regional, commuter, and freight trains.
-This ambitious high-speed rail program has short-term liabilities and long-term benefits. The pace of investment has meant substantial government debt. The benefits include cutting travel time in half between cities less than 600 miles apart because of long transit times associated with air travel.
-The result is greater economic productivity as urban places become more geographically connected, which is especially important for providing interior provinces with increased economic opportunities.
-Taiwan's economy is more diversified, with a strong presence of competitive small and medium-sized firms.
- In addition to the basic heavy industries of shipbuilding, iron and steel, textiles, and chemicals, the country exports precision instruments, telecommunications equipment, electronic parts, and higher-value computer-related products.
- Japan Model, a unique adaptation of Western methods to indigenous Japanese culture and values. This model included government guidance, not control; competent bureaucracy; proper sequencing of the development process; focus on comparative advantage and regional specialization; wise investment of surplus capital; development of infrastructure; emphasis on education and upgrading of the labor force; population planning; and a long-range perspective.
-Another feature of Japan's economic system has long been its tiered structure, consisting of a pyramid with a relatively small number of modern, giant companies at the top; a greater number of medium-sized firms in the middle; and thousands of tiny workshops and family establishments at the bottom.
-he majority of Japan's urban-industrial development is concentrated along the southern coast of Honshu, particularly in the three regions of Tokyo-Yokohama, Nagoya, and Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto.
-The Keihin region (37 million) centered on Tokyo (8.9 million) is the most populated urban region in the world, and is overwhelmingly dominant at a number of geographical scales. The region contains about 29 percent of Japan's population. Tokyo is the imperial capital, the seat of the Japanese government, the center of media and advertising, and also the country's dominant financial and corporate center
-Along with New York and London, Tokyo is one of three command centers of global finance, commerce, and production
-The Hanshin or Kansai region (17 million) centered on Osaka (2.6 million), Kobe, and Kyoto is the country's second largest urban-industrial region. Unlike the Keihin region, which supports a diverse economic base, Hanshin's regional economy rests on more traditional industry and commerce
-The Chukyo region (10 million), centered on the city of Nagoya (2.2 million and fourth largest), is Japan's third most important urban-industrial region. Located between Tokyo and Osaka, Nagoya is an important heavy industrial city much like Osaka, but with a noticeable difference: it is the home to Toyota Motor Corporation with its Toyota City and adjacent parts plants. EAST ASIA MAJOR CLIMATE CHARACTERISTICS
Japan, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
-cold, dry grasslands to warm, humid subtropical forests, are found in East Asia.
-, East Asia has a monsoon climate, but is modified by its east coast location and its more northerly and continental position
- The wet summer monsoon envelops southernmost China by April and lasts approximately six months, but it does not reach northeastern China until June.
- Rainfall amounts are greatest in southern China where the annual average exceeds 50 inches
- As a result, the lowlands of eastern China south of the Chang Jiang River experience warm and sultry summers similar to those of the southeastern United States.
-Interior regions receive substantially less precipitation because of the shorter summer monsoon and their greater distance from the sea.
-A comparison of summer monsoon precipitation totals for Hong Kong, Wuhan, and Beijing illustrates this phenomenon
-Similarly, western China and Mongolia receive very little precipitation during their short wet season.
- Like much of coastal East Asia, China is also subjected to hurricane-like typhoons. - Originating in the Pacific Ocean and lashing the Philippines, typhoons most frequently make landfall between Shanghai and Hong Kong with high winds and heavy rain
- Compared to Atlantic hurricanes, Pacific typhoons are more numerous and powerful because the Pacific Ocean is larger and warmer.
-Because Japan assumes an elongated north-to-south orientation, has a mountainous landscape, and is surrounded by water, its climate is varied and complex. - Hokkaido experiences cool summers, and from northern Honshu to southern Kyushu, summers become increasingly warmer.
- Winter temperatures vary more; the average January temperature in northern Hokkaido is 28°F (−2°C), in central Honshu 39°F (4°C), and in southern Kyushu 47°F (8°C).
- The wet summer monsoon is characterized by Pacific air masses from the southwest flowing across the archipelago.
- Summer is wetter than winter, and southern Japan is wetter than the north, but there is no distinct dry season
- Much like the warm Gulf Stream off the east coast of the United States, the Kuroshio Current heightens humidity levels in southern and eastern Japan.
- Japan averages three typhoons per year, far fewer than China. -In 1543, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive, followed by the Spanish, Dutch, and English over the next half century. The visitors were impressed by Japanese technological and cultural achievements, while the Japanese were attracted to European trade goods that included guns, tobacco, and Chinese luxuries.
-By 1640, the Spanish and Portuguese were expelled and the Dutch, English, and Chinese were confined to a small island in the port of Nagasaki on the western coast of Kyushu. The government closed Japan over fears that foreign influences would undermine peasant and samurai loyalties.
-The Ainu were among Japan's earliest inhabitants Racially different and almost exclusively a hunting and fishing people, they also were treated as aliens by the Yamato Japanese. EAST ASIA POPULATION STATISTICS
-most basic environmental challenge facing China is the provision of clean freshwater.
-With only 7 percent of global water resources and approximately 20 percent of the world's population, clean water is in short supply.
-One-quarter of China's surface water is too polluted even for industrial use and less than half of total water supply is drinkable.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that almost 100,000 people die annually from water pollution-related illnesses and that 75 percent of diseases are linked to substandard water quality
- Approximately 320 million rural inhabitants do not have access to safe drinking water and approximately 190 million use drinking water containing excessive levels of hazardous substances.
-Chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and livestock waste in surface runoff are the primary forms of rural-based water pollution.
-Animal wastes have increased dramatically because of the rising demand for meat among a more affluent population.
- Untreated residential and industrial wastewater enters 75 percent of rivers flowing through urban areas, making their water unfit for both human consumption and fishing.
- Eighty percent of China's sewage and other wastes enter rivers and lakes untreated. Many township and village enterprises that have become critical to China's economic growth drive are the sources of much of this pollution.
-air pollution in older urban areas and in those regions experiencing dramatic postreform growth.
-China surpassed the United States as the largest producer of greenhouse gases in 2006, but two important observations qualify this fact.
-One important source of pollution is high-sulfur coal; Beijing's residents and factories are highly dependent on coal as a heating and energy source.
- An estimated 70 percent of the coal used fails to meet the government's stated environmental standards. Transport is another major source of air pollution.
- Air and water pollution became acute. Beloved Mt. Fuji could rarely be seen from Tokyo, which was shrouded in a brownish smog most of the time.
-Fishing was halted in Tokyo Bay.
-Poisonous chemicals, such as organic mercury and cadmium, entered the food chain in certain localities, which produced horrible birth defects and suffering.
- China is the world's largest coal producer, but in 2011 became the world's largest coal importer. China consumes more coal than the United States, Japan, and the European Union combined. -China (1.35 billion) and Japan (128 million) are the first and tenth most populated countries in the world.
-South Korea (48.9 million), North Korea (24.6 million), Taiwan (23.3 million), and Mongolia (2.9 million) round out the balance of East Asian countries.
- In addition, some regions of individual countries possess high population densities
- Even with large expanses of open spaces in China and Mongolia, the population density of East Asia is about three times the world average.
-The region also has some of the most populated urban areas in the world.
- some 94 percent of China's population resides in the humid eastern region, which constitutes only 43 percent of China's land area.
-Within this eastern region, about 40 percent of the population occupies some 10 percent of the land area, coinciding with the alluvial valleys of the lower Huang He and Chang Jiang and the coast.
- Population densities in some of these more crowded rural regions may easily reach 250 persons per square mile (100 persons per square kilometer).
- Population densities progressively decrease with increasing distance from the coast and some provinces are far more populated than others.
-Much of the drier and elevated western half of China is sparsely populated.
- Likewise, drier Mongolia to the north of China is sparsely populated.
-Environmentally dominated by desert and grasslands, Mongolia's average density is three persons per square mile, which makes it one of the lowest population density countries in the world.
- Population concentrations in North and South Korea are found in the western foothills and lowlands where both national capitals are located.
-In Japan, approximately 80 percent of the national population is found on the largest island, Honshu, and the majority of this population is strung along the coastal plain and foothills of the Pacific or the southeast coast where the largest urban regions are located.
-Dominated by an eastern mountainous backbone, the vast majority of Taiwan's population is concentrated along the western alluvial plains dotted with large urban regions.
-The greatest population densities are found in the well-watered river valleys and coastal plains. Eastern and western China exhibit one of the sharpest population density transitions of any country in the world.
-The spatial distribution of China's population is uneven.
-The Han are China's majority culture group, accounting for 92 percent of the population and primarily found in the eastern two-thirds of the country.
-The remaining 8 percent of China's population are comprised of ethnic or cultural minorities primarily located in interior regions.
-The government officially recognizes 55 different minority groups, of which 18 have populations greater than 1 million people. With the exception of Xinjiang and Tibet (Xizang), every province or autonomous region has a Han Chinese majority.
-The direct consequences of single-child families as well as a shortage of females are many. The existence of fewer women has led to a "marriage squeeze" in which there are too few females for men wanting to marry.
-Mongolia, physically isolated and landlocked, is about three times the size of California, but is only populated by about 3 million people
- North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, with 24.6 million people) and South Korea (Republic of Korea, with 48.9 million people)
-Seoul (23 million people live in the larger urban region) is now one of the world's most populated cities and the primate city for the world's 15th largest economy.
-Taiwan's 23.3 million people now live with a population density of 646 people per square kilometer.
-Japan's population has aged greatly since 1950 and is expected to continue to do so in the decades ahead. -China can be divided into three broad agricultural regions: rice in the southeast, wheat in the northeast, and oasis agriculture in the west.
-Vegetables and various types of melons are grown everywhere, as are soybeans, to make traditional bean curd—an important source of protein in a traditionally meat-scarce diet.
- Fruit orchards also are important; in the north, apples and pears are common, while in the south, citrus dominates.
- Supplementary crops increase opportunities for peasant farmers to earn additional income.
-coal
-oil
-hydroelectric power
-iron
-steel
-chemicals
-textiles
-wind energy
-solar energy
-Mongolia's economy stagnated until the early 2000s when the country opened up its vast and recently discovered mineral resources to development. These resources include copper, gold, uranium, coal, and other strategically important minerals.
-Japan is severely lacking in mineral resources and must import nearly everything it needs for energy production (except hydropower) and industrial development.
- Japan was able to marshall its greatest resource—a well-educated, technically proficient people. Its able administrators and entrepreneurs were eager to seize the reins and rebuild the nation just as fast as U.S. authorities would allow. SOUTH EAST ASIA MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
-Thousands of mountains, basins, river valleys and islands that make up this 11-country region
-The first subregion is Mainland Southeast Asia, a group of countries that are physically part of the Asian continent and include Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar.
-The second is Insular Southeast Asia, comprising the countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Timor-Leste, and the Philippines.
-While the peninsular half of Malaysia is physically part of the Asian continent, its economy and culture warrants its inclusion in Insular Southeast Asia.
- landforms are composed of alternating bands of mountain ranges and river valleys .
- These north-south aligned mountain ranges are actually lower elevation spurs of the Himalayas.
-While a handful of mountain peaks reach up to 9,000-10,000 feet , most average 3,000-5,000 feet, and are geologically stable
- From west to east between these mountain ranges run several very big rivers, including the Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, and Red.
-These rivers provide irrigation water for rice-based agriculture, fish for millions, and before the modern period functioned as transport corridors that reached deep into the forested continental interior -During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the arrival of Arab, Indian, and Chinese traders dramatically transformed the development of Insular Southeast Asia.
- Indian merchants introduced Islam, which was adopted by local royalty, who became leaders of "sultanates." Islam subsequently spread rapidly throughout the local population and eventually reached Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
-The main exceptions to adoption of Islam were the more isolated interior peoples, who remained animists, and Bali, which remained Hindu.
-Mainland Southeast Asia is primarily Buddhist whereas Islam dominates in Insular Southeast Asia. Exceptions are Roman Catholicism in the Philippines and the island of Timor, Hinduism in Bali, and pockets of Christianity and indigenous religions in interior regions.
-Malaysia and Indonesia are insular nations that share a number of cultural traditions. I SOUTH EAST ASIA MAJOR ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS
-The concentration of economic activity in the colonial cores also contributed to ever-increasing differences between the more Westernized urban centers and the indigenous rural hinterlands.
-Modernization proceeded at a rapid pace in the larger cities, while the rural peripheries attracted little investment in industry, education, or health care.
-This domestic core-periphery relationship remains much the same today.
-These modernizer countries include Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
-Since the 1980s, firms from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong account for most of the FDI.
-Singapore is the richest country in the region and ranks first in these development
-Thailand and Malaysia are the second and third largest FDI recipients, and as upper middle-income countries, their Human Development Index scores are relatively high.
-While classified as modernizer economies, Indonesia and the Philippines are still developing countries in the broadest sense of the term, as indicated by all three statistical indicators.
-As transitional socialist countries, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia remain poor, although Vietnam has made great strides in attracting FDI.
-Although still low, Vietnam's Human Development Index score is higher than that of Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar because of the greater wealth generated by FDI.
-Timor-Leste has the highest per capita GNI PPP, but only because of large quantities of foreign assistance for this poor country after gaining independence from Indonesia.
-Myanmar is characterized by the lowest socioeconomic indicators for this group of reformer countries.
-In 2011, the region's total population was only 43 percent urbanized; only South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have lower levels of urbanization.
-Urbanization levels are much higher in the richer countries of Insular Southeast Asia, with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia averaging 56 percent
- the Mainland Southeast Asia countries of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar averaging a much lower 28 percent.
-However, Southeast Asia includes the three megacity (greater than 10 million) regions of Jakarta, Manila, and Bangkok.
-Southeast Asia is also a major tourist destination. Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia have emphasized tourism as a dedicated development strategy because tourism activities provide employment opportunities and promote upgrading transport infrastructure to cater to international tourists. - Rich Singapore has a thoroughly globalized economy, exports high-value electronics goods, and is a regional center of banking, transport, and service industries.
-Still a major global producer of plantation products, Malaysia has become a middle-income industrialized country with an economy based on a wide variety of electronics exports.
-The economies of Indonesia and the Philippines remain more tied to resource exports and are poorer developing countries confronting problems of economically integrating their respective far-flung archipelagos.
-Today Singapore continues to function as a leading regional maritime trade center, competing with Hong Kong as the busiest container port in the world
-This example of a "borderless world" associated with globalization led to the 1989 establishment of a growth triangle centered on Singapore, the nearby southern Malaysian state of Johor, and the Indonesian islands of Batam and Bintan, situated just south of Singapore
-The Phillipines receives FDI in the form of payroll, billing, and call centers, in part because of the English-language fluency of its educated middle class.
-The former U.S. naval facility on Subic Bay near Olongapo in central Luzon has attracted numerous offshore manufacturing facilities as well, as have zones on the southern and northern edges of Manila and Mactan Island near Cebu.
-mong the modernizer countries of Southeast Asia (except oil-rich Brunei), the Philippines still attracted the lowest amount of FDI during the 2000-2010 period.
- manufacturing has become the engine of economic growth. As a result, Thailand's GNI PPP per capita in 2011 was $8,390, making it an upper middle-income country.
-Thailand's 2011 exports accounted for 61 percent of GDP and manufacturing exports accounted for over 76 percent of this total.
- Thailand has become the center of Southeast Asia's automobile industry;
-it is the fourteenth largest global producer and the industry accounted for 12 percent of GDP in 2011.
- Thailand is home to more than 15 foreign corporations assembling passenger cars as well as 1,800 parts suppliers. Thailand is also the world's largest exporter of pickup trucks. Japanese manufacturers arrived in the 1980s, and General Motors, Ford, BMW, and Porsche have established assembly operations
-The engine of Vietnam's economic turnaround has been FDI, which accounted for 40 percent of industrial production in 2009 and 7.5 percent of GDP in 2010. Between 2005 and 2010, Vietnam attracted 16 percent of the total manufacturing FDI and 76 percent of all FDI in ASEAN SOUTH EAST ASIA MAJOR POLITICAL CHARACTERISTICS
-Singapore is also the only developed nation in Southeast Asia where ethnic Chinese constitute the majority.
-Because of economic and ethnic differences with Malay-majority Malaysia, this ethnic Chinese enclave became a separate independent country in 1965.
-The pervasive role of government in economic and social planning has been central to Singapore's success. The state controls many profitable domestic industries and actively seeks out foreign investment.
-Social planning policies have assured social stability in an ethnically diverse population, adequate housing for all, a relatively crime-free environment, high personal savings rates, and an immaculately clean urban environment.
-Despite being perceived by some as an overly regulated state, Singapore's government continues to attract FDI because it is virtually free of corruption.
-Although on paper Singapore is organized as a constitutional democracy, these accomplishments are the product of a "soft-authoritarian" government dominated by a single political party that has handily won every election
-. Because the government views its primary responsibility to be the promotion of economic growth, political freedoms in the Western sense become less important in legitimizing political power.
-ndonesia relies extensively on maritime shipping for economic development..
-The country of the Philippines includes more than 7,000 islands, many of them uninhabited. The Philippine Islands have experienced the greatest degree of Western cultural influences compared to other Southeast Asian countries. -This mine, situated high in the Maoke Mountains of western New Guinea, western New Guinea, has been the object of prolonged and serious conflict between the Indonesian government and a coalition of international environmental and indigenous tribal interests.
-High unemployment and underemployment rates are due in part to high population growth rates.
- Not enough jobs are being created for those entering the workforce, which explains why 29 percent of Filipinos, about 28 million people, live below the poverty line.
-Closing the income gap between the rich few and the sea of poor is critical to the country's future economic prospects.
-At the same time, this most democratic of Southeast Asian countries experiences endemic political corruption and instability, which drives potential foreign investments elsewhere.
-socialist Vietnam
-Myanmar remains one of the last isolationist military governments in the world,
- Government surveillance of the Internet, lack of political freedom, and periodic discrimination against religious institutions, both Buddhist and Christian, can only create social unrest among young Vietnamese.
-Improving the lives of rural people during the 1990s was severely hampered because of the millions of land mines and unexploded bombs used by Vietnamese, American, and Khmer Rouge military forces. Cambodia is one of three countries in the world that account for 85 percent of unexploded land mines. SOUTH EAST ASIA CURRENT AND PAST CHALLENGES
-Population growth, rapid urbanization, and export-driven economies during the modern period threaten forests and coastal habitats.
-Southeast Asia has the greatest relative rate of deforestation compared to any other tropical region.
- Southeast Asia has been the dominant global source of timber and pulp for more than 40 years.
- While most countries have banned the export of raw logs, illegal logging remains rampant, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar.
-Enforcement is a problem as local and regional government officers are bribed to look the other way. Realizing that greater incomes can be earned by processing logs into pulp, plywood, and furniture, some governments have promoted domestic wood-based industries.
-Vietnam is a major exporter of furniture, with much of the wood being smuggled across the border from Laos. Another major cause of deforestation is the growth of large oil palm plantations
-the problem is that burning trees release vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the forests destroyed can no longer act as carbon dioxide sinks
- Indonesia has become the third greatest carbon dioxide emitter in the world
-While some logged forests have regrown into secondary forests or have been planted with fast-growing trees for pulp, the species biodiversity of both flora and fauna is much reduced.
-Malaysia and Indonesia in 2010 ranked third and fourth in the world for the highest number of threatened species.
-In addition to the Asian elephant and Sumatran tiger, the highest-profile animal victim of deforestation is the orangutan (meaning "forest person"), an orange-haired, tree-dwelling primate found in Sumatra and Borneo - The wild orangutan population today is approximately 14,000-25,000, but experts predict that if the present rate of deforestation continues, the orangutan will become extinct by 2025.
-With 90 percent of Southeast Asians living within 60 miles of the coast, it is understandable why coastal environments are ecologically threatened
-Among various degraded coastal environments, the loss of mangrove forests and coral reefs is the most severe.
- A major factor is the conversion of mangrove to farmed shrimp ponds, where shrimps are intensively raised using commercial feed
-Mangrove conversion to shrimp ponds also causes saltwater intrusion, coastal land loss, and declining coastal water quality, as well as the loss of traditional coastal livelihoods. This is unfortunate because the sustainable use of mangrove forests yields greater value than the profits earned from exporting shrimp.
- Large-scale agriculture, logging, and mining dramatically increase the sedimentation rates of rivers, resulting in poor coastal conditions for reef growth.
-Urban-sourced pollution runoff and offshore oil spills have also exacted a toll.
-Extracting reef resources is another serious problem. Artisanal resource extraction has always existed, but increased demand for reef corals and fish put greater pressure on reef sustainability.
-it is the human-induced changes to tropical forests that have led to the more frequent, intense forest fires.
-Only 20 percent of adults have the equivalent of a high school degree and government expenditure on education is one of the lowest in the world. Government corruption is endemic and seems to have increased; Cambodia's government was ranked the twentieth most corrupt in the world in the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index and was the second most corrupt country in Southeast Asia behind Myanmar. SOUTH EAST ASIA HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
-The first period, from about 1500 to 1800, was characterized by mercantile colonialism. Private Western trading companies established trading forts and engaged in commerce with local elites for native luxury goods. This form of colonialism involved both the Dutch East India Company centered on Java and the British East India Company with trading forts in Burma, the Malay Peninsula, and Singapore. In the Philippines and Timor-Leste, the Spanish and Portuguese, respectively, engaged in direct colonial rule by the late 1500s.
-This period was followed by an era of industrial colonialism, which lasted from 1800 to 1945 and brought direct Western political control of territory as well as Western private or corporate economic involvement. By the late 1800s, the British and Dutch had brought much of their territories under direct rule, as did the French in French Indochina (modern-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). SOUTH EAST ASIA POPULATION STATISTICS
- In the continental portion of the region, the population has traditionally been concentrated in river valleys separated by mountain chains.
-In the island half of the region, population clusters are found along coastal plains.
-The 2010 population of the Jakarta EMR was 28.3 million, with 18.2 million in the core and inner zones. The populations of the Manila and Bangkok EMRs were 22 and 14 million, respectively.
-But Indonesia, with 241 million people, is the world's fourth most populous country and other countries in the region are highly populated by world standards. These include the Philippines (96.2 million), Vietnam (89.0 million), Thailand (69.9 million), and Myanmar (54.6 million), which are ranked 12th, 14th, 20th, and 24th in the world, respectively. SOUTH EAST ASIA RESOURCES
- Malaysia and Indonesia produced 86 percent of the world's palm oil, used in a wide variety of food products ranging from chocolate to cookies as well as in soaps and cosmetic products.
- Palm oil is also in great demand in Europe as a cheap and efficient "green energy" biofuel to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
-Southeast Asia—particularly Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam—accounted for 56 percent of total U.S. shrimp imports
-oil, rubber, tin, hemp, sugar, palm oil, tea, and tobacco.
-The region only has 1 percent of the world's oil reserves, 4 percent of natural gas reserves, and less than 1 percent of coal reserves. -New Zealand was formed from the Ring of Fire, a section of the belt of unstable crust rimming the Pacific.
-The islands are the crest of a giant fold in the Earth's crust that rises sharply from the ocean floor.
- Almost three-quarters of South Island is mountainous, dominated by the Southern Alps, which rise to elevations above 12,000 feet.
- North Island is less rugged, but it has peaks that exceed 5,000 feet and live volcanoes.
-The physical geography of the Pacific Islands has made conventional Western-style economic development difficult.
-Many high islands are of volcanic origin with extremely rugged interior cores, but only a few have mineral wealth.
- Others are relatively flat atolls that have formed on the tops of coral reefs, are low-lying, and are exposed to storms and sea level rise.
- The vast majority of the islands, except mainland Papua New Guinea, are relatively small and limited in the numbers of people they can support.
-The tiny coral atolls that make up the Marshall Islands contain few natural resources, despite their lush, densely vegetated tropical landscapes. The runway of Majuro Amata Kabua International Airport on the coral island of Majuro takes up almost the entire width of one segment of the atoll. AUSTRAILA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC ISLAND MAJOR CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
-The continent's native flora and fauna are truly unique—especially marsupials (animals with a pouch to carry their young) like kangaroos, koalas, wombats, numbats, Tasmanian Devils, and possums
-Approximately 80 percent of the 20,000 plant varieties are endemic species (not found elsewhere) and most common are drought-tolerant eucalypts (gum), banksia, and acacia (wattle) tree species. Australia shares important flora and fauna with New Guinea to its north, because until 14,000 years ago they were connected by a land bridge. - In 2012, GNI PPP was $42,400, compared to $49,800 in the United States (which has a lower cost of living and lower average salaries), and $36,700 in the United Kingdom, placing Australia in the world's top 20 nations based on this indicator.
-Australia is one of the best-performing economies in the world and economic growth, averaging 3.4 percent a year, has been almost continuous for the last 20 years. The unemployment rate, at 5.2 percent, is low
-New Zealand's per capita income is only about three-fourths that of Australia's. AUSTRAILA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC ISLAND MAJOR CLIMATE CHARACTERISTICS
-One very large and generally arid landmass, Australia, dominates the region and provides the setting for a large assemblage of unique flora and fauna
-The smallest of the continents, Australia is as remarkably flat as it is dry.
-Australia's climate is wettest and most humid in the north, dry and desert-like in the vast center, and becomes mediterranean in the south and southwest. Only 11 percent of Australia gets more than 40 inches of rain a year; two-thirds of the country receives less than 20 inches.
- drier than normal conditions are also generally observed in Queensland, inland Victoria, inland New South Wales, and eastern Tasmania in the southern hemisphere winter (June to August)
-New Zealand has a humid temperate climate, commonly known as marine west coast, with mild summers and winters .
- As a result New Zealand escapes the aridity that is such a prominent part of Australia's continental-scale landscape. - Higher global temperatures contribute to warmer seas as well.
-The coral reefs on which low islands depend for storm protection are everywhere threatened by water temperature changes that promote species that attack corals or reduce their ability to process sunlight into food
-In countries with substantial tropical and temperate forests, such as Papua New Guinea (PNG) and New Zealand, deforestation is a significant issue.
- The temptation to realize substantial profits immediately, rather than manage for sustainable yields over the long term, is considerable.
-With a rainforest that is the third largest in the world, PNG is also seeing this resource decrease by 1.5 percent each year.
-Rising sea temperatures have resulted in mass coral bleaching and ocean acidification (due to absorption of excess CO2), which destroy the coral itself.
-Under temperature stress, algae harbored by coral tissue die, food production ceases, and coral bones turn white.
-Displaced fish stocks have sought new habitats elsewhere, and this has resulted in more chick mortality among the seabirds that rely on the fish. AUSTRAILA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC ISLAND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMIGRATION PATTERNS
- Australia and New Zealand are settler nations that were colonized and governed by Britain
-Until 1788, Australia was inhabited by Australian Aborigines, the continent's indigenous people, and the Torres Strait Islanders off the northern tip of Queensland.
-These populations were members of some 300 distinct "nations" and there were multiple languages spoken. Aboriginal people have complex origins, but it is certain that they have been in Australia for over 50,000 years, much of that time as semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers (and very occasionally, settled peoples)
- It was in 1770 that Britain's Captain James Cook became the first European to survey the east coast of Australia, the part of the continent that appeared most suitable for settlement. But the first British ships did not disembark at Sydney Cove until 1788.
-Exploration and settlement by adventurers, emancipists (convicts who had served out their sentences), and others continued into the nineteenth century. Immigration was encouraged by Britain through land grants to settlers that paid no heed to prior Aboriginal occupancy. For the British authorities, Australia was terra nullius (empty land) that they could legally occupy.
-New Zealand was one of the last countries in the Pacific to be settled, first by eastern Polynesians who came by ocean-going canoes (waka) in separate voyages between A.D. 1250 and 1300. Their language and spiritual beliefs evolved further in isolation from other groups after their mid-thirteenth century arrival in New Zealand -European settlement of New Zealand, which occurred at a similar time to Australia, involved the resettlement of some Australian residents eastward as part of the migration flow
-The Maori people were New Zealand's first inhabitants. New Zealand was one of the last countries in the Pacific to be settled, by eastern Polynesians who came by oceangoing canoes (waka) in separate voyages between a.d. 1250 and 1300.
-Approximately 68 percent of New Zealanders say they have European origins—mostly British, but including people from the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Germany, and other countries who arrived in significant numbers once immigration restrictions were eased after World War II.
-The indigenous Maori population is the largest minority, at about 16 percent.
-The remaining minority population is made up of other Pacific Island peoples (mostly from Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, and Tonga), who migrated to New Zealand after 1960, and 350,000 Asian resident AUSTRAILA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC ISLAND POPULATION STATISTICS
- Thus the bulk of the Australian population remains concentrated east of the crest line of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, New South Wales, and central Victoria, and in isolated, moderately dense nodes around Adelaide and Perth.
- Inland from the Pilbara Coast, in the Kimberly Plateau, in Arnhem Land behind Darwin, and in the flatlands of the interior Outback of New South Wales and Victoria where water is scarce, population is limited and widely dispersed.
-In Papua New Guinea the reverse distribution occurs: coastal lowlands, particularly on the heavily forested south coast, are very low-density environments.
-Only the coastal cities of Port Moresby and Lea are exceptions. -Instead, the bulk of population is concentrated in the central highlands where cooler temperatures and more favorable agricultural opportunities are found.
- Most of New Zealand's relatively small population isconcentrated on the higher potential North Island, and in a few large urban areas on South Island.
-The population of Australia is concentrated in a narrow strip along the east, southeastern, and southwestern coasts, but the drier interior is comparatively empty. A mountainous interior, particularly in the South Island, similarly confines New Zealand's population to coastal locations.
-Some 89 percent of Australia's population lives in urban areas. Around 40 percent of the people live in the two sprawling metropolitan areas of Sydney and Melbourne, with populations of approximately 4.7 and 4.2 million respectively . One reason for this is that Australia's agricultural production is extensive rather than intensive, and employs few people.
-All five of Australia's largest cities—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane (2.2 million), Perth-Freemantle (1.9 million), and Adelaide (1.3 million)—are seaports, and each is the capital of one of the five mainland states of the Commonwealth.
-most of New Zealand's 4.4 million Kiwis live in cities, similar to the situation in Australia. However, the cities of New Zealand are generally much smaller; the largest is Auckland on North Island, with 1.4 million people
-The Pacific Islands' population is only about 11.9 million AUSTRAILA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC ISLAND RESOURCES
-The Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Queensland is one of the world's great natural wonders. It stretches for 1,616 miles over an area of approximately 133,000 square miles , making it the largest coral reef ecosystem in the world. The reef is so large that it can be seen from space.
- the Great Barrier Reef one of Australia's top tourist destinations with an average of 1.9 million visitor days a year, second only to Sydney. Visitors contributed A$59 million a day to the Queensland economy in 2012.
-Western Australia is endowed with large deposits of iron, alumina, natural gas, nickel, and gold—wealth in the desert.
-The state produces more than 20 percent of the world's alumina, and about 17 percent of its iron ore.
-The central coast area known as the Pilbara is the nation's engine of iron production. Iron ore mines run 24 hours a day, and in the Pilbara alone there are 16 mines, with more awaiting approval by state and federal environmental agencies. -The Argyle diamond mine in the northwest is the world's largest producer of diamonds and the only known source of pink diamonds.
-Western Australia also extracts up to 75 percent of Australia's gold. The northwest continental shelf is home to huge reserves of natural gas. At James Price Point, Woodside Petroleum is planning the largest liquified natural gas (LNG) processing plant in the world 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Broome.
-Wheat and barley are dominant crops, alongside sugarcane, fruits, and animal products, primarily from cattle and sheep (Figure 12-14), and these generate a significant export trade.
-leads in production of bauxite and alumina, diamonds, lead, and uranium (with 40% of the world's uranium deposits); is second in production of gold, nickel, and zinc; is third in iron ore and manganese; and is fourth in coal, copper, and silver.
-The mediterranean climate of southeastern Australia also encourages the cultivation of vines, and Australia has become an increasingly important producer and exporter of wine.
-Pastoral industries still dominate exports and, because of the country's small population, make New Zealand a world leader in per capita trade. It is among the world's top two or three exporters of mutton, lamb, butter, cheese, preserved milk, wool, and beef.
-, New Zealand produces globally acclaimed Sauvignon Blanc wines. What geographic factors help explain why South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana are among the most powerful economies in Sub-Saharan Africa?
-Buoyed by a diverse agricultural base dominated by cocoa, coffee, timber, and palm oil,
-Following the signing of the Ouagadougou Peace Accords in 2007, a reunited Côte d'Ivoire reengaged with the international community and reactivated programs that focused on debt restructuring, infrastructure rehabilitation, governance, and institutional development. The country financed these initiatives with revenues from coffee and cocoa exports, as well as oil, gold, and iron ore. The tourist industry was also upgraded to take advantage of the rich savanna fauna and an elaborate national park system.
-Ghana (formerly known as the Gold Coast) had significant gold, manganese, bauxite, and timber reserves. It was also a leading world producer of cocoa. It had a well-educated human resource base, and its population was supported well by its 92,000-square-mile (238,000-square-kilometer) area. Ghana was also endowed with one of the world's largest artificial lakes, Lake Volta, which was dammed at Akosombo to develop a multipurpose river project that included the harnessing of hydroelectric power to smelt alumina and to develop inland fishing. -The country now has expanding economic sectors in agriculture, industry, mining, and telecommunications boosted by oil discoveries and expanding partnerships with Mongolia, Ukraine, India, and Brazil. It is one of a few countries expected to meet the Millennium Development targets set for 2015. Barring any political misfortune, Ghana is poised to establish itself as a leader in social, economic, and technological reform in sub-Saharan Africa.
-Boosted by the development of its petroleum industry in the late 1960s, Nigeria recorded better than average economic growth rates up to 1980. Oil still dominates the economy, accounting for 20 percent of the GDP, 75 percent of government revenues, and 86 percent of total export earnings
-In addition to oil, Nigeria has the largest reserves of natural gas in Africa, as well as significant reserves of lignite coal, tin, and iron ore.
-South Africa is a pivot area of the Southern Hemisphere relative to three major zones of peace: the Indian Ocean, which was declared a "zone of peace" by the United Nations in 1971; the Antarctic region, which under the provisions of a 1959 treaty is restricted to research and scientific activities; and Latin America, which was declared a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone under the terms of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, signed in Mexico City in 1967.
-South Africa also is located on a major alternate route for international shipments of petroleum and minerals.
- South African ports remain significant support stops for supertankers as well as destinations for petroleum shipments to Southern Africa.
-accounts for 30 percent of the region's gross national income, 40 percent of industrial production, 80 percent of crude steel production, and 58 percent of installed electricity capacity. South Africa also has the densest road, rail, and air networks in sub-Saharan Africa. Its rail and harbor network is the only reliable trade link with the outside world for the landlocked countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi, as well as for much of the DRC. Each year, several million migrant workers are employed in South Africa's mining, industrial, and agricultural sectors. What challenges does South Africa face that interfere with its political and economic power within the Sub-Saharan Africa region?
-South Africa is potentially a major player in the economic and political transformation of not only Southern Africa but also the rest of Africa South of the Sahara.
-South Africa was more interested in imposing its system of apartheid, consolidating its power base, controlling strategic resources, and annexing SWA territory.
-But South Africa continues to press on with reforms aimed at overcoming spatial and economic inequalities, adjudicating land disputes, and empowering black men and women.
-During most of the Cold War era, South Africa used its economic, strategic, and political leverage to sustain its policy of racial segregation, called apartheid.
- At the time, South Africa was seen as a "bastion" against the spread of communism.
-With the end of the Cold War, South Africa's political leverage faded, setting the stage for social, economic, and political reform in the country.
-With one-man, one-vote black rule firmly established in South Africa, and with relative stability and political reform in neighboring countries gaining ground, South Africa now has the opportunity to play a positive and enabling role in the social and economic development of sub-Saharan Africa.
-Apartheid promoted racial separation by creating theoretically independent black homelands based on tribal and ethnic affiliation. After the collapse of the apartheid regime, a new administrative structure of nine provinces expanded political representation and allowed for greater regional autonomy.
- South Africa's unemployment rate remains at 25 percent, and 23 percent of its population still live in poverty.
-South Africa still has one of the widest gaps of income inequality in the world. Millions live in poverty, including millions of black women who continue to work in the informal sector. -Blacks occupy just 12 percent of senior positions in private business compared to 75 percent of whites. The situation is much worse for black chief executive officers (4%) and chief financial officers (2%); BEE has created a small black elite, but does not have the intended broad-based impact.
-Another major challenge confronting the South African government is the land reform required to address the injustices of forced removals and years of denying Africans access to suitable land.
- The three major components of the government's land reform program are land restitution, land redistribution, and land tenure reform.
- Overall economic growth has been slow, investment in mining and industry is sluggish, wages have languished, unemployment rates are high, and discontent is widespread.
-While labor relations in many of South Africa's mines may continue to deteriorate and produce conditions that are difficult for management to control, this situation is not an isolated occurrence. Deeply rooted problems also affect the agricultural sector.
-questions surrounding the viability of the multiracial republic still remain.
- Although the number of provinces was increased from four to nine to decentralize government and diffuse possible regional tensions, there are still threats of secession from different groups.
-Extremist white nationalists are seeking a "volkstaadt," while Zulu hard-liners refuse to come to terms with a government of national unity.
-There are also rumblings from Tswanas who at one time wanted no part of a federation. Although these are difficult and complex challenges, the government continues to push its agenda for change and unity through peace initiatives and economic reforms.
As South Africa confronts these issues internally, it also has to deal with the challenge of defining its role in Southern and sub-Saharan Africa. What geographic factors help explain the ongoing conflicts in much of the tropical regions across central Africa (e.g., Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia)?
-Nigeria's climatic diversity makes possible a broad range of food and cash crops . The northern savanna zone supports cash crops such as peanuts and cotton as well as food crops such as guinea corn, millet, and cassava. In the southern forest and wooded zones, principal cash crops include cocoa, rubber, oil palm, and coffee, while food crops include sorghum, rice, maize, and yams and other tropical tubers.
-Much of Central Africa lies in the equatorial region where tropical humid conditions prevail. The states in the region account for 17 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's land area and only 11 percent of its population . -Gabon, the Congo Republic, and Equatorial Guinea have capitalized on the wealth of mineral and forest resources. Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been plagued by economic mismanagement and/or political instability. Overall, the pattern of development has been very uneven. Rapid population growth throughout the region, together with political instability and human welfare problems compromise future prospects for improvement.
-The northern region lies in the watershed of Lake Chad and its landscape is characterized by semiarid savanna grasses, bushes, and acacia trees. The south supports denser vegetation as it merges into true rain forest near the Congo Basin.
-The CAR is doubly dependent—on both its immediate neighbors, and international markets for the import and export of crucial goods. The principal route that external trade must take is a 1,110-mile (1,800-kilometer) journey south along the Ubangi River to Brazzaville on the Congo (Zaire) River, and then by rail to Pointe Noire on the Atlantic coast.
-In addition to the high freight and line-haul costs associated with shipment between different modes of transport, exports must also absorb very high insurance costs associated with safeguarding goods against theft, vandalism, and perishability at coastal ports.
-Economic development in the republic is hampered by a poorly developed social and physical infrastructure, economic mismanagement, and political instability.
-The country has no railroad, and less than 2 percent of its estimated 13,700-mile (22,000-kilometer) road network is paved. -Its telecommunications system is substandard, consisting mostly of low-powered radios.
-Agriculture accounts for about 55 percent of the republic's economic output and 60 percent of the workforce, and is dominated by coffee (its major export crop), cotton, and, to a lesser extent, tobacco.
- It has valuable species of hardwood that are underutilized, as well as untapped reserves of petroleum and uranium. Diamonds now account for about 50 percent of export earnings, despite an increase in smuggling activities.
-Despite a large and diverse resource base, the DRC's 69 million people remain one of the poorest populations in Africa, with a per capita GNI PPP of only $320. The nation is plagued by low educational attainment, high female illiteracy, and high rates of child malnutrition. The majority of its population lacks access to health services, basic sanitation, and safe water.
-Perhaps the single most important factor to explain the DRC's social and economic malaise is the more than three-decades-long despotic and self-indulgent leadership the country endured under Mobutu. His regime was the epitome of corruption, greed, and incompetence. Mobutu did little to improve the country's social and physical infrastructure, but chose to enhance his personal wealth by building castles, chateaus, and villas in Spain, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. His net worth was estimated at $3-$7 billion.
-Physical environments are quite diverse, with semiarid and arid conditions dominating Somalia, northern Kenya, and Sudan and temperate conditions in the fertile Lake Victoria agricultural borderlands of southeast Uganda, northwest Tanzania, and southwest Kenya.
- Tensions based on ethnic rivalries afflict every nation in the region, and have resulted in civil wars and secession efforts . Socialist and communal development strategies have been followed and largely found wanting, but neoliberal approaches have not succeeded either. Pockets of success in ecotourism and agriculture are encouraging but distressingly limited.
-This clanocracy acts as both a unifying and divisive force. Mohammed Fara Aidid and Ali Mahdi, both from the Hawiye clan, collaborated to overthrow the government of former president Siyaad Barre (from the Marehan clan, a subclan of the Darood) in 1991. The coup was a reaction to Barre's brand of scientific socialism, which clashed with Islamic and clan-based traditions.
-South Sudan's independence came amidst much hope for a bright future. But immense challenges must be overcome: sharing oil revenues, resolving border disputes, and easing lingering ethnic tensions. With independence, landlocked South Sudan controlled three-quarters of the previously united country's oil reserves. But oil export requires transport through oil pipelines that cross its northern neighbor to distribution facilities on the Red Sea.
-Other boundary issues remain unsettled. A referendum to determine whether the contested border region of Abyei will be in the south or north has been delayed
-It is too early to tell whether the new Somalia government will endure. Islamic extremism remains a threat and underlying clan differences remain a strong divisive force.
-Clan warfare is typically provoked by disputes over water and pasture rights or political control.
-Until a strong and unified government emerges, untainted by the interests of a specific clan, conflict and economic stagnation will continue to afflict Somalia. SOUTH ASIA MAJOR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
-South Asia is one of three subregions of Asia, and is often called the "Indian subcontinent" because of the territorial dominance of its largest country, India.
-On India's periphery are the smaller countries of Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh; the island country of Sri Lanka, and the even smaller archipelagic country of the Maldives. South Asia is the second poorest world region after sub-Saharan Africa.
-South Asia is structured by mountain ranges and major plateaus. More important for South Asia's people are the fertile lowland areas of the great river valleys and deltas. Of paramount importance is the seasonal monsoon rainfall system, which provides the water that supports rural South Asians' livelihoods.
-The world's most imposing boundary between world regions is South Asia's northern mountain rim, which encompasses the Karakoram in northern Pakistan and India and the even loftier Himalayas that separate lowland India from the Tibetan Plateau.
-This formed in ancient geologic times with the subduction of the northeast-migrating Indian plate under the Asian plate.
-The edge of the Asian plate became upthrusted and folded into an imposing mountain wall. Because of this active tectonic plate environment, the northern mountain rim has been subject to numerous earthquakes. The most recent occurred in 2005 in Kashmir where 80,000 people died and over 100,000 were left homeless. -There exists a stark contrast between the Indian lowlands and the Himalayas. Perceived as religiously sacred, no other mountain chain in the world possesses as many peaks exceeding 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) as the Himalayas.
-The second large-scale physical region encompasses the alluvial plains of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers, called the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The Indus and Ganges rivers are separated by the uplifted Thar Desert.
-The nutrient-rich Indo-Gangetic alluvial soils support about half of South Asia's people.
-Much of the southern half of India consists of an elevated surface called the Peninsular Plateau, which is underlain by a core of ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks.
- Its most extensive portion, the Deccan Plateau, averages between 2,000 and 3,000 feet (600 to 900 meters) above sea level and possesses the largest share of India's minerals.
-The edges of the Deccan Plateau abut the Western and Eastern Ghats, meaning "steps." The Western Ghats are a steep mountain range with average elevations of 5,000 feet (1,500 meters), below which is a narrow, lushly vegetated coastal plain.
-India, one of the world's largest countries, is divided into 28 states and seven union territories.