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Borders and boundaries are found worldwide. You are probably well aware of borders on land that separate regions and countries, but did you know that there are also borders and boundaries that divide the waters around us and the airspace above us? Borders and boundaries can either be natural or artificial/manmade. Some are legally binding, some appear on maps and some are created by your huffy neighbours who put up a fence. No matter what, borders and boundaries are all around us and influence our lives every single day. Borders – DefinitionBorders are geographic boundaries that can be divided into physical borders and political borders. It can be a real or artificial line that separates geographic areas. Borders are, by definition, political boundaries, and they separate countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, and towns. Borders – MeaningAs mentioned in the definition, borders are political boundaries, and often, these boundaries are guarded. We rarely see border control within Europe and the EU when crossing a border. An example outside Europe/the EU is the border between the US and Canada, where a person, and potentially their vehicle, will be checked by customs officers when crossing. Borders are not fixed; they can change over time. This can happen through violence when people take over a region, trade or sell land, or divide the land and give it out in measured portions after war through international agreements. BoundariesThe words 'boundaries' and 'borders' are often used interchangeably, although they are not the same. As mentioned above, a border is a dividing line between two countries. It separates one country from another. They are, by definition, political boundaries. A boundary is the outer edge of a region or area of land. This line, either real or imaginary, separates geographical regions of the Earth. It shows where one area/region ends, and another begins. The definition of a physical boundary is a naturally occurring barrier between two areas. These can be rivers, mountain ranges, oceans, or deserts. These are also called natural boundaries. Natural boundariesIn many cases, but not always, political boundaries between countries or states are formed along physical boundaries. Natural boundaries are natural features that create a physical boundary between regions. Two examples are:
Natural boundaries are recognisable geographic features, such as mountains, rivers, or deserts. These natural boundaries are a logical choice as they are visible, and they tend to interfere with human movement and interaction. A political boundary is a line of separation, usually only visible on a map. A natural boundary has length and breadth dimensions. With a natural boundary, however, all countries involved must agree on a method of marking a boundary line, using methods such as stones, poles, or buoys. Different types of natural boundariesThe different types of physical boundaries include:
FrontiersFrontiers are vast unsettled or underpopulated areas that separate and protect countries from each other, and they often function as natural boundaries. Frontiers can be deserts, marshes, frigid lands, oceans, forests, and/or mountains. For example, Chile developed while surrounded by frontiers. Chile's political core is in Santiago Valley. To the north lies the Atacama Desert, to the east lies the Andes, to the south lies frigid lands, and to the west lies the Pacific Ocean. The Andes Mountains are a remaining frontier, acting as a natural boundary between Chile and Argentina. Rivers and lakesThese boundaries are quite common between nations, states, and counties, and about 1/5th of the world's political boundaries are rivers. Examples of waterway boundaries are:
Oceans/maritime bordersOceans are vast expanses of water that separate countries, islands, and even whole continents from one another. With improved navigation of the seas/oceans in the 1600s came the need for legal statuses, starting with the British claiming the three nautical mile (3.45 mi/5.6km) limit in 1672, which was about the distance a cannon projectile could travel. In 1930, the League of Nations accepted this three nautical mile limit, which was standardised by the Supreme Court of Holland in 1703. After World War II, states began turning increasingly to the seas for their resources, transport ease, and strategic value. Consequently, In 1982, the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, also known as the Law of the Sea Treaty, came to the following agreements:
Contiguous = adjoining, neighboring, or touching The largest EEZ is France. This is due to all the overseas territories all over the oceans. All the French territories and departments combined have an EEZ of 3,791,998 square miles, the equivalent of 96.7%. Tectonic platesInteractions between tectonic plates also create activities on their boundaries. There are different types of boundaries:
MountainsMountains can form a physical boundary between two or more countries. Mountains were always considered a great way of forming a boundary because they held back or slowed down people trying to cross the boundary. That being said, mountains are not the best place to demarcate boundaries. Surveys may define the boundary along the highest summit, the watershed, or points along the base of the slopes. However, many of the current dividing lines have been drawn after various places were settled, meaning that they separated people who share the same language, culture, etc. Two examples are:
We can distinguish three types of borders in Geography:
As mentioned earlier, political boundaries are also known as borders. Political boundaries are characterised by an imaginary line, which separates countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, and towns. Sometimes, political boundaries can also separate cultures, languages, ethnicities, and cultural resources. Sometimes, political boundaries can be a natural geographic feature, such as a river. Often, political boundaries are classified by whether or not they follow distinct physical features. Political boundaries are not static, and they are always subject to change. Political boundaries characteristicsWhile many political boundaries have checkpoints and border control where people and/or goods crossing a border are inspected, sometimes these boundaries are only visible on a map and not visible to the naked eye. Two examples are:
Political boundaries occur on different scales:
No matter at which scale the political boundary is, they demarcate political control, determine the distribution of resources, demarcate areas of military control, divide economic markets, and create areas of legal rule. Demarcate = 1. delimit, showing the limits of something.2. to set apart, distinguish. Political boundary classificationPolitical boundaries can be classified as:
Political boundaries can be disputed between countries, especially when there are natural resources that both groups want. Disputes can also happen when determining the boundary locations, how those boundaries are interpreted, and who should control the areas within the boundary. International political boundaries are often the site of attempts to forcibly change or ignore political boundaries. The consent between the relevant nations that is needed to change international political borders is not always respected, making political boundaries frequent sites of conflict. Political boundaries can also cause issues when they divide or combine ethnic groups as they can be either forced apart or merged. It can also raise problems surrounding immigrant and refugee flow, as the regulations and restrictions over admitting or excluding an individual from a particular nation can place a country's political boundary at the centre of the debate. Types of Boundaries - Human GeographyApart from political boundaries, other boundaries and borders in human geography should be mentioned. However, these boundaries are not as distinctly defined as political and natural boundaries. Linguistic boundariesThese are formed between areas where people speak different languages. Often, these boundaries coincide with political boundaries. For example, in France, the predominant language is French; in Germany, which has a political border with France, the principal language is German. It is also possible to have linguistic boundaries in one country. An example of this is India, which has 122 languages. 22 are recognised by the government as 'official languages'. In general, the people who speak these languages are split into different geographic regions. Economic boundariesEconomic boundaries exist between people of differing levels of income and/or wealth. Sometimes these can fall on national borders. An example is the boundary between the developed US and underdeveloped Mexico. In some cases, economic boundaries can happen within one country and sometimes even in one city. An example of the latter is New York City, where you have the wealthy Upper West Side in Manhattan and its neighbour, the low-income neighbourhood of the Bronx. Natural resources play a role in economic boundaries, with people setting in areas rich in natural resources such as oil or fertile soil. These people tend to become wealthier than those living in areas without or with fewer natural resources. Social boundariesSocial boundaries exist when differences in social circumstances and/or social capital results in unequal access to resources and opportunities. These boundary issues include race, gender/sex, and religion:
Animism = the religious belief that there are spirits throughout nature A landscape border is a mixture of a political border and a natural border. While landscape borders, like natural boundaries, can be forests, water bodies or mountains, landscape borders are artificial instead of natural. The creation of a landscape border is usually motivated by demarcating treaty-designed political boundaries. It goes against nature due to the modification of natural geography. An example is China's Song Dynasty which, in the 11th century, built an extensive defensive forest on its northern border to hinder the nomadic Khitan people. Lines of Control (LoC)A line of control (LoC) is a militarised buffer border between two or more nations that don't have permanent borders yet. These borders are often under military control and they are not officially recognised as an international border. In most cases, an LoC results from war, military impasse, and/or unresolved land ownership conflict. Another term for LoC is a cease-fire line. Airspace bordersAirspace is an area within the Earth's atmosphere above a specific country or territory controlled by that country. The horizontal borders are determined under international law as 12 nautical miles out from the coastline of a nation. As for vertical borders, there are no international rules on how far an airspace border goes up into outer space. There is, however, a general agreement called the Kármán line, which is a peak point at an altitude of 62mi (100km) above the Earth's surface. This sets a boundary between the airspace in the atmosphere and outer space. Types of Borders - Key Takeaways
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