Geography: Realms, Regions,
and Concepts
by H.J. de Blij and Peter O. Muller
Study Guide: Self-Testing Questions
Introduction
1. Define spatial
2. What does the term hierarchy mean?
3. What characterizes each major world realm?
4. Explain how regionalization is the geographer's means of classification.
5. How do most regional boundaries appear in the landscape?
6. Why is relative location a more practical measure than absolute
location?
7. How does a formal region differ from a functional region?
8. How can certain regions be conceptualized as systems?
9. What is scale?
10. What is a representative fraction?
11. Is the Earth static or dynamic?
12. What is meant by the term plate tectonics?
13. What is the Pleistocene?
14. What is the Late Cenozoic Ice Age?
15. How many episodes of climatic warming and cooling marked
this ice age?
16. What proportion of the Earth is covered by water?
17. What are the components of the hydrologic cycle?
18. Is moisture evenly distributed across the globe?
19. What does the world regional pattern of climates look like?
20. What are the general features of A climates?
21. What are the general features of B climates?
22. What are the general features of C climates?
23. What are the general features of D climates?
24. What are the general features of E climates?
25. What are the general features of H climates?
26. How can humans leave their imprint on the land surface?
27. What exactly is the cultural landscape?
28. What is meant by sequent occupance?
29. How large is the population of the world, and what are the
immediate prospects for growth?
30. What does the global distribution of humanity look like?
31. Where are the four largest population agglomerations located?
32. What are the main features of the East Asian population cluster?
33. What are the main features of the South Asian population cluster?
34. What are the main features of the European population cluster?
35. What are the main features of the North American population
cluster?
36. At what differing rates are the major population agglomerations
growing?
37. How many political units are there today?
38. What is the European State Model?
39. What is the central concern of economic geography?
40. What are the four economic groups that countries are divided
into?
41. Why is the world no longer simply divided into "developed"
and "undeveloped" countries?
42. How is economic development measured?
43. What are some of the obstacles that under-developed areas
face?
44. What is a geographic realm?
45. What does the distribution of world geographic realms look
like?
46. What are the names of the 12 geographic realms?
47. What are the major characteristics of each realm?
48. What are the systematic subfields of geography?
Chapter 1
1. What is geomorphology?
2. What are the tectonic geomorphic processes?
3. What is meant by the terms weathering, erosion, and deposition?
4. What are the three major types of rock and their origins?
5. What are Europe's chief geographic resources?
6. Where is Europe's eastern boundary?
7. What are the major characteristics of the Central Uplands?
8. What are the major characteristics of the Alpine Mountains?
9. What are the major characteristics of the Western Uplands?
10. What are the major characteristics of the North European Lowland?
11. What area was the heart of the ancient civilization of Greece?
And what were some Greek contributions?
12. What additional contributions did the Romans make to empire-building?
13. What were the lasting contributions of the Romans through
the Dark Ages?
14. What was the overriding politico-geographical trend in Europe
between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance?
15. What were the main trend of the Renaissance?
16. What is mercantilism?
17. What was the agrarian revolution?
18. What is the von Thünen model and what are its lasting
virtues?
19. What was the Industrial Revolution?
20. Name the factors of industrial location enunciated by Alfred
Weber.
21. How did the political revolution after 1780 forever change
Europe?
22. What is a nation?
23. What is a nation -state?
24. What are centripetal and centrifugal forces?
25. Is Europe an overall homogeneous regional unit?
26. Define the three principles of spatial interaction developed
by Edward Ullman.
27. What is the status of Europe's transportation network?
28. What is a primate city?
29. where does Europe rank among the urbanized realms?
30. How do European cities differ from U.S. cities?
31. Define central business district (CBD).
32. What is devolution?
33. What is meant by the term supranationalism?
34. What are Benelux and EEC?
35. Name the countries constitute this region?
36. How long was Germany partitioned into East and West?
37. What geographical features contributed to West Germany's post
WWII "economic miracle?"
38. What is the difference between site and situation?
39. How are the economies of Belgium and the Netherlands complementary
to each other?
40. Define conurbation.
41. What is Randstad Holland?
42. Which leading international organizations are headquartered
in Brussels?
43. What are the four languages spoken in Switzerland? Name another
Western European country with more than one official language.
44. What city and river are synonymous with Austria?
45. What are the political components of this region?
46. What are the United Kingdom's 5 subregions, and how are they
characterized?
47. Where did England's Industrial Revolution originate and flower?
48. As stagnant Northern England declines economically, what are
the prospects for Southern England.
49. Which two nearby cities are the industrial and cultural foci
of Scotland?
50. Both Scotland and Wales are potential candidates for devolution-define
this concept.
51. Who are the contestants for power in Northern Ireland?
52. Which countries constitute this region?
53. Why is southern Sweden much more densely populated than northern
Sweden?
54. How have the seas favored Norway in recent years?
55. Why is Estonia considered to be part of Northern, rather than
Eastern Europe?
56. Which Nordic country is a major dairy-product exporter?
57. Which countries constitute this region?
58. What generalization can be made about the population distributions
of this region's countries?
59. How do the level of urbanization and raw materials of this
region compare to those to the north?
60. Which country is Mediterranean Europe's most populous and
best connected to the European core?
61. Which vital subregion of Italy contains nearly half ist population
and today functions as its economic core?
62. What is meant by the term Mezzogiorno?
63. Which countries are located on the Iberian Peninsula?
64. What is meant by the term balkanization? Why is this
region so often called a shatter belt?
65. What is ethnic cleansing?
66. Which countries constitute this region?
67. Where is Poland/s leading industrial area located?
68. What is the significance of the Bohemian Basin?
69. Why is the Danube a failure at unifying Eastern Europe?
70. How was former Yugoslavia organized when under communist rule?
71. Name the five independent entities of former Yugoslavia.
72. Why was Slovenia the most successful state to secede from
former Yugoslavia?
73. Why was Ukraine an economic-geographic cornerstone of the
former Soviet Union?
Chapter 2
Climatology
1. What is the difference between weather and climate?
2. What is a gyre?
3. What are wind belts?
4. Why are the interiors of landmasses drier than their coastal
areas?
Russian History
5. Where was the first Slavic state located?
6. When did Moscow emerge as the center of the Russian state?
7. What was the contribution of the Cossacks to the expansion
of modern Russia?
8. How far did the Russians penetrate into North America?
9. What were the contributions of Tsar Peter the Great and Tsarina
Catherine the Great to the expansion of the Russian Empire?
Physiography
10. What made the Ukraine's climate so important to the former
U.S.S.R.?
11. Where is the Russian Plain located?
12. What are the two chief rivers of the West Siberian Plain,
the world's largest lowland?
13. What is the major inland water body of the Eastern Highlands?
Soviet Legacy
14. When was the Soviet Union formed?
15. What was the largest of the former S.S.R.'s?
16. What was the overall result of past Soviet attempts at population
planning?
17. Was the former Soviet Union truly a federation?
18. What were the two main objectives of Soviet economic planners?
19. What is the difference between a kolkhoz and a sovkhoz?
20. Why did the Soviets have to turn to outside sources for food
during the decades of communism?
21. What was the greatest obstacle to farming in the Kazakh S.S.R.?
Russia Today
22. What were Mikhail Gorbachev's achievements as a world leader?
23. When did the Soviet Union collapse?
24. What did the Russian Federative Treaty of March 1992 establish?
25. On the basis of relative location, how are Russia's republics
grouped in the text?
Russia's Internal Republics
26. What are the republics of the Heartland?
27. Name the republics of the Caucasian Periphery.
28. What are the republics of the North?
29. Name the republics of the Southeast.
Political Geography
30. What is the heartland theory?
31. What was the rimland theory?
Regions of the Russian Realm
32. List the regions of the Russian realm.
33. Where is the Russian Core located?
34. Where is the Central Industrial Region?
35. What are Russia's two largest cities?
36. Which economic sectors have been the focus of development
in the Volga (Povolzhye) region since World War II?
Transcaucasia
37. Where is Transcaucasia?
38. Why is Transcaucasia called the Balkans of the Asia?
39. What are the three political entities of Transcaucasia?
Georgia
40. Name the three minority-based autonomous entities in this
country.
41. Which centrifugal forces have come to the forefront since
the fall of the U.S.S.R.?
Armenia
42. Where is Armenia's exclave?
43. What recent setbacks have affected the republic?
Azerbaijan
44. What are the republic's ties to its southern neighbor, Iran?
45. What future political problems does Azerbaijan face?
Chapter 3
Two Highly Advance Societies
1. What is a postindustrial economy?
2. What are some major geographic differences between the U.S.
and Canada?
Urban Geography
3. What is the difference between interurban and intraurban
geography?
4. What is central place theory?
North American Characteristics
5. What percentage of the Canadians speak English as a primary
or home language? French?
6. What are Canada's two largest provinces and cities in population
size?
7. Where is the heart of Francophone Canada?
8. What are the different leading social divisions in the U.S.
and Canada?
9. What is meant by the term Time-space convergence?
Physical Geography
10. What is a physiographic province?
11. What is the rain shadow effect?
12. What are Arid and Humid America?
13. What are the broadest vegetation division in the U.S. environment?
14. Name the five Great Lakes and their outlet to the sea.
15. Name the major tributaries of the Mississippi River..
Population and Urbanization
16. What did the 1980 census reveal about the geographic center
of the U.S. population?
17. Why does the migratory stream to the U.S. Sunbelt remain strong?
18. What were the three separate culture hearths of the
United States?
19. When did the Industrial Revolution occur in the U.S.?
20. Name the five stages in Borchert's model of American metropolitan
evolution.
21. What is the core area of the realm, and what are the
four corners of the rectangular boundary that encloses this region?
22. What is the economic heartland of the core region?
23. Name the four stages in the Adams model of intraurban structural
evolution.
24. What is meant by the terms outer city, suburban downtowns,
and the urban realms model?
Cutural Geography
25. What are the values that underlie the American nativist culture?
26. What is a dialect?
27. What is the emerging mosaic culture?
Economic Geography
28. Identify: (1) primary, (2) secondary, (3) tertiary, (4) quaternary,
and (5) quinary economic activity.
29. Name the three fossil fuels and their three leading
North American source areas.
30. Describe the application of the von Thüen Model to the
explanation of the spatial structure of U.S. agriculture.
31. What are economies of scale?
32. How does the principle of historical inertia help to
maintain the aging industries of the Manufacturing Belt?
33. Where has the industrial revitalization effort been centered
in the U.S.?
34. What is the basic product in the new postindustrial society
of the U.S.?
35. What are the location factors that attract today's pacesetting
"high-tech" companies?
Canada's Human Geography
36. Name Canada's Atlanta Provinces.
37. Which two Canadian provinces contain the largest populations?
38. When did Canada become a federation?
39. Have Canadian metropolises deconcentrated as much as their
American counterparts?
40. How has the separatist movement fared in Quebec since the
1970s?
41. What are Southern Canada's new economic problems?
North American Regions
42. What is the Continental Core?
43. What problems do northern New England and Atlantic Canada
share?
44. What are the South's persistent economic problems?
45. What are the tricultural influences evident in the Southwest?
46. What are the two leading resources of the Marginal Interior?
Chapter 4
Middle American Characteristics
1. What is the spatial extent of this realm?
2. Why is Middle America more culturally diverse than South America?
3. What is a land bridge?
4. What is the difference between Central and Middle America?
Historical Geography
5. What is historical geography?
6. What is a landscape evolution?
7. What is settlement geography?
8. Why are Spanish New World towns laid out in the same form?
9. Why was the gridiron street plan so effective in colonial Middle
America?
Mesoamerican Legacy
10. What is Mesoamerica?
11. Where was the Maya civilization centered?
12. Describe some of the Maya's accomplishments?
13. Who were the Aztecs?
14. What was the central area of the Aztec's empire?
15. Which crops did the Amerindians of Mesoamerica contribute
to the world?
16. What kinds of agriculture were emphasized after the Spanish
conquest?
17. What was the most far-reaching change in the cultural landscape
brought by the Spaniards?
18. What further changes were engendered by the mining industry?
Mainland and Rimland
19. What is the difference between the cultures of Mainland and
Rimland Middle America?
20. What are the geographic differences between Mainland and Rimland?
21. What are the five characteristics of Middle American plantations?
22. What are the political legacies of Middle American colonialism?
The Caribbean
23. Which two ethnic groups suffered as a result of the European
sugar trade?
24. Why do the export crops and the mineral resources of the islands
provide so modest and income for the region, and why does wide-spread
poverty persist?
25. What is a mestizo?
26. Why is there a large population of Asian peoples in the Caribbean?
27. Which islands have sizeable Asian populations?
Mexico
28. How strong is the Amerindian imprint on Mexican culture?
29. Did the 1910 Revolution achieve its goals?
30. Where is most of Mexico's oil production located?
31. What are maquiladoras?
Central America
32. Name the seven republic of Central America.
33. Environmentally, where is most of the region's population
concentrated?
34. Name the four altitudinal zones of human settlement in highland
Middle and South America.
35. What basic conflicts divide the population of Central America?
36. Which republic was run by the Sandinistas during the 1980s?
Which republic is the "Switzerland" of Central America?
37. What is the current status of the Panama Canal?
Chapter 5
South American Characteristics
1. How does South America's longitudinal position differ from
North America's?
2. What is the realm's dominant physiographic feature?
Economic Geography
3. What is economic geography?
4. What makes the pattern of South American agriculture unusual?
Historical Geography
5. Who were the Incas?
6. List some of the Incas' major achievement.
7. How and when did the Spaniards conquer the Incas?
8. How did Spain and Portugal resolve their 15th century disputes
over South American territory?
9. Why did the Portuguese import so many Africans to coastal Brazil?
10. How did South America's 19th century independence movement
spread?
Culture Areas
11. Name the five internal culture spheres of this realm as defined
by Augelli.
12. How well unified is the South American realm?
Urbanization
13. How fast is South American urbanization increasing?
14. Why does the migration toward cities remain so high in the
1990s?
15. Name the land-use zones of the "Latin" American
city model.
Brazil
16. How large is Brazil's relative size?
17. What centripetal forces bind Brazil together?
18. How has the Brazilian economy fared since 1980?
19. What is Brazil's political-geographical framework?
20. What is the growth pole concept?
Caribbean South America
21. What forces bind this region?
22. What is the political status of each of Guianas?
23. What are Venezuela's major activities?
24. Where is most of Colombia's coffee grown?
The Andean West
25. Which states make up this region? Which culture dominates?
Which groups rule?
26. What are the three physiographic/cultural subregions into
which Peru is divided?
27. Name the four altitudinal zones of human settlement in Andean
South America.
28. What is the Sendero Luminoso?
29. What crucial territory did Bolivia lose to Chile?
Mid-Latitude South America
30. What is the significance of the Argentine Pampa?
31. What is the status of the Falkland Islands in the 1990s?
32. Compare and contrast the population distributions of Argentina,
Uruguay, and Chile.
33. In what ways does Paraguay exhibit traits of a regional transition
zone?
34. What are northern Chile's major minerals?
Chapter 6
Realm Characteristics
1. Why is "Dry World" a misleading title for this realm?
2. Why is "Arab World" equally misleading?
3. Why is "Islamic World" just as unsatisfactory?
4. Why is "Middle East" not much of an improvement?
Cultural Geography
5. What are the six major themes of cultural geography?
6. What is the central concern of cultural landscape interpretation?
7. How do popular and folk culture differ?
Historical Geography
8. What were the three culture hearts of North Africa/Southwest
Asia?
9. Name some of the major agricultural innovations that originated
in these hearths.
10. When did the Prophet Muhammad live?
11. What are the "Five Pillars" of Islam?
Spatial Diffusion
12. What is an innovation wave?
13. What are the two major types of spatial diffusion?
14. What are the two forms of expansion diffusion?
Oil Resources
15. What proportion of the world's oil reserves are contained
within this realm?
16. Name the realm's eight members of OPEC as of the end of 1993.
Egypt and the Lower Nile Basin
17. How important is the Nile to this country?
18. How do basin and perennial irrigation differ?
19. Why is Egypt so prominent an Arab country?
20. Name Egypt's six major subregions.
The Maghreb and Libya
21. What does Maghreb mean? Name its constituent countries.
22. In what way is the political landscape of the Maghreb changing?
African Transition Zone
23. What is the extent of this region?
24. How did Ethiopia become a landlocked state?
25. Why is there such environmental risk to life in the African
Transition Zone?
The Middle East
26. Name the five countries of this region.
27. What are the leading problems of Iraq, Syria, and Jordan?
28. Why has Lebanon been torn by internal strife for the past
two decades?
29. How old is the modern state of Israel?
30. How has Israel's development fared vis-à-vis its neighbors?
31. What percentage of the Israeli population is urbanized?
32. What is the distribution of Palestinians in the Middle East?
Arabian Peninsula
33. Name the countries of this region.
34. What are some major recent Saudi Arabian development projects?
The Empire State
35. Name the countries of this region.
36. Why has Turkey remained aloof from other Arab countries?
37. Who are the contestants in the Cyprus struggle?
38. How has modernization affect Iran?
39. How did the Iran-Iraq War affect Iran?
40. Which states established the buffer role for Afghanistan?
Turkestan
41. Which countries comprise Turkestan?
42. What factors unite the Kazaks?
43. In what way are political relations troubled for Uzbekistan?
44. What ethnic minorities are located in Turkmenistan?
45. Which countries outside Turkestan are vying for influence
in this region?
Chapter 7
Medical Geography
1. What is medical geography?
2. What are disease vectors and hosts?
3. How can contagious diffusion be a useful concept for combating
disease?
4. What is the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic disease?
African Environments
5. What is rift valley?
6. What is the Great Escarpment?
7. What is continental drift? How does it help to understand
Africa's physiography?
8. Describe Africa's broad patterns of climate and vegetation.
9. What is Africa's worst endemic disease?
10. How is sleeping sickness transmitted?
11. Where is river blindness a major hazard?
African Agriculture
12. What problems plague African farming?
13. What is the role of cattle in much of Africa?
14. What is the prospect for agricultural improvement?
Historical Geography
15. Why is so little known about Subsaharan Africa before A.D.
1500?
16. Does this mean that pre-colonial Africa had no organized cultures
and traditions?
17. Where did the first European contacts occur?
18. How did the subsequent European penetration proceed?
19. What administrative systems did the Europeans employ in colonial
Africa?
Cultural Patterns
20. How many languages are spoken in this realm?
21. Which religion was brought to Subsaharan Africa with the first
great wave of proselytism?
West Africa
22. Which countries are included in this region?
23. What regional unities exist?
24. Where are West Africa's main population concentrations?
25. Who are Nigeria's three leading peoples?
26. Which was the first of West Africa's states to become independent?
27. What are periodic markets?
Equatorial Africa
28. Which countries make up this region?
29. What has hampered Zaïre's great development potential?
30. What primary economic activities characterize the Equatorial
region?
East Africa
31. Which countries constitute this region?
32. Describe East Africa's natural environment?
33. How does Kenya's development differ spatially from Tanzania's?
34. What has Tanzania's course been since independence?
35. What is Uganda's current status?
Southern Africa
36. Which countries are included in this region?
37. What is the significance of the Copperbelt?
38. How have Moçambique's good chances for development
been crushed?
39. What is the status of Namibia?
South Africa's Characteristics
40. What are the country's general geographic dimensions?
41. Who were the Boers?
42. Name the leading ethnic groups in South Africa today.
Political Geography
43. What is apartheid? What is its successor, separate
development?
44. Why was the world's attention focused on South Africa for
the past decade?
45. What are the prospects for South Africa in the immediate future?
Economic Geography
46. How did the discovery of diamonds open up the South African
interior?
47. Besides diamonds and gold, name the other assets that supported
South Africa's economic development over the past century.
48. Was the country developed equitably or did regional economic
differences arise?
Chapter 8
Population Geography
1. What does population geography study?
2. Define density, arithmetic density, and physiologic
density.
3. Describe the pattern formed by a concentration of people along
a river floodplain.
4. What factors influence the overall growth rate of a place?
South Asian Characteristics
5. Which countries constitute this realm?
6. Describe South Asia's three major physiographic regions.
7. What is the North Indian Plain?
8. What is the Punjab?
9. What is the course of the Indus River?
10. What are the Eastern and Western Ghats?
Historical Geography
11. Who were the Aryans? What was their impact on the emergence
of India's modern culture?
12. What lasting impact did Buddhism make?
13. What was the lasting impact of Islam?
14. Describe the realm's colonial-era experience.
15. Describe the events surrounding the 1947 partition of British
India.
Pakistan
16. What factors unite Pakistan as a state?
17. Where is the country's Muslim stronghold?
18. What are some examples of irredentism in Pakistan?
India's Political Geography
19. Describe India's federal political structure.
20. What is India's present linguistic status?
21. What are centrifugal and centripetal forces?
How do they operate in India today?
India's Demographic Trends
22. What is the current doubling time for India's population?
23. Which country of South Asia is growing most slowly?
24. Is the Demographic Transition Model applicable to India?
25. Has the rate of urbanization been as rapid in India as elsewhere
in the less advantaged realms?
India's Economic Development
26. Why is Indian agriculture so stagnant?
27. Has the Green Revolution improved farm productivity?
Bangladesh
28. Describe the country's agricultural situation.
29. What are some problems with Bangladesh's infrastructure?
Sri Lanka
30. Which two groups are in conflict here?
31. What is the situation in the Jaffna Peninsula?
Chapter 9
Where is the Pacific Rim?
1. What are the major similarities of the western Pacific Rim
countries?
2. Where have some of the most spectacular developments occurred
in the western Pacific Rim?
Geography of Development
3. How is development measured?
4. What are the stages in Rostow's development model?
Regions of East Asia
5. What are the regions that comprise the East Asia region?
China's Characteristics
6. What is the pinyin system?
7. How large is China's population?
8. What does China's general climate pattern look like?
9. What are China's three most important rivers?
10. What are the main farming/population clusters of China?
11. What crops are grown in the North China Plain? The Lower Chang
Basin? The Xi Basin?
Historical Geography
12. When and where did the earliest Chinese culture develop?
13. What were the major accomplishments of the formative Han period
(207 B.C.-A.D. 220), that made it the "Roman Empire"
of East Asia?
14. Why was China's self-assured isolationism shattered in the
19th century?
15. List China's political fortunes since 1900.
16. What is the concept of extraterritoriality?
17. What was the Long March?
18. When did communism become the controlling force of the Chinese
state?
Political Map and Population
19. How is China's political framework divided?
20. What is China's most populous province?
21. How has the attitude of the government toward population control
changed since the 1970s?
22. Which ethnic group forms the largest population clusters in
China?
23. What percentage of the Chinese live in rural areas?
China's Regions
24. What are the leading industrial resources of the Northeast?
25. Why does the Northeast China Plain look like a rustbelt?
26. Where is the North China Plain, and what is its significance?
27. What is the situation of the capital city of Beijing?
28. Which of China's major rivers is most navigable?
29. When and how was Xizang (Tibet) occupied by China?
30. Describe the human geography of Inner Asia China.
The Jakota Triangle
31. Which countries are included in this region?
32. What characteristics do the countries of the Jakota Triangle
share?
Japan's Modernization
33. When were the old rulers of Japan overthrown, paving the way
for reform?
34. How were the Japanese able to transform their society since
1868?
Japan's Special Organization
35. Where did Japan's early industrial growth concentrate and
why?
36. Name the four main islands of the Japanese archipelago.
37. Which nation forced open the modern era of Japanese international
contact and trade?
38. What are Japan's shortcomings in local industrial resources?
39. What role did relative location play in Japan's post-World
War II development?
40. What percentage of Japan's land is considered habitable?
41. List the main ideas of Philbrick's principle of areal functional
organization.
42. What are the leading features of the Kanto Plain?
43. What are the leading features of the Kansai District?
44. What are the leading features of the Nobi Plain?
45. What are the leading features of the Kitakyushu conurbation?
Japan's Food Production
46. How has the Japanese agricultural labor force changed since
1920?
47. Why must Japan rely so heavily on food imports?
48. What new food resources are being developed?
Korea
49. Describe South Korea's growth as an economic tiger.
50. When and how did Korea become divided into North Korea and
South Korea?
Taiwan
51. What types of goods currently dominate Taiwan's exports?
52. What is Taiwan's greatest problem?
China's Economic Zones
53. What are Special Economic Zones (SEZs)?
54. What are the three entities that constitute Xianggang (Hong
Kong)?
55. When does control of Hong Kong revert from the U.K. to China?
56. How did Hong Kong become an economic tiger?
57. Why has Shenzhen been the most successful of China's Special
Economic Zones (SEZs)?
58. Besides SEZs, what other economic zones were introduced in
recent years?
Chapter 10
Political Geography
1. What are centripetal and centrifugal politico-spatial
forces?
2. What is meant by the term territorial morphology?
3. What is meant by the boundary-related terms of definition,
delimitation, and demarcation?
Realm Characteristics
4. Why is Southeast Asia a shatter belt?
5. Describe the realm's population distribution. Why is it different
from the rest of Asia's?
6. Name the major population concentrations of this realm.
Southeast Asia's Political Geography
7. What were the major colonies of the British, French, Dutch,
Spanish, and Portuguese?
8. Describe the origin of the modern state of Malaysia.
9. Which countries constitute Indochina?
10. Describe the distribution of the Chinese in Southeast Asia.
11. What are the identifying characteristics of antecedent,
subsequent, superimposed, and relict boundaries?
12. What are the identifying characteristics of compact, fragmented,
protruded, and elongated state territorial morphologies?
Regions of the Realm
13. What countries do the mainland and insular regions of Southeast
Asia contain?
14. List the chief centrifugal politico-geographical forces
for the following countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia,
and Indonesia.
15. Why has Singapore become an economic tiger?
16. What is the major religion of Indonesia?
17. Which religion is dominant in the Philippines?
18. Where was the Chinese invasion felt most strongly within the
Philippines?
19. What are the three areas of densest population in the Philippines?
Chapter 11
Biogeography
1. What does biogeography study?
2. Who was the founder of biogeography as a systematic field?
3. What two fields is biogeography divided into?
Australia's Dimensions
4. Is Australia part of the Pacific Rim?
5. Where is most of Australia's population concentrated?
6. What is meant by the term "Outback"?
7. How did Australia's indigenous peoples arrive on the island
continent?
Australia's Political Geography
8. Why is Australia a federal state?
Australia's Urban and Economic Geography
9. What percentage of today's Australians reside in cities or
towns?
10. How is Australia functionally organized?
11. What are some of Australia's economic problems?
12. Name Australia's three leading agricultural exports?
13. Where are Australia's main dairying zones located?
14. What kind of spatial pattern is exhibited by Australia' varied
mineral deposits?
15. What is the present condition of Australian manufacturing?
Australia's Population
16. Are Australia's European ties as strong as they used to be?
17. What percentage of the Australian population now is of British/Irish
origins?
18. Why is the Australian government under pressure to limit immigration
once again?
New Zealand
19. Who are the pre-European people of New Zealand, Polynesians
who are still present in large numbers?
20. How do Australia's and New Zealand's landscapes differ?
21. What is the chief farming region of the South Island?
Chapter 12
Marine Geography
1. What politico-spatial problems do marine geographers study?
2. What is a state's territorial sea?
3. What was the outcome of the UNCLOS conferences?
4. Why was it necessary to draw median line boundaries between
many countries' territorial seas?
Dimensions of the Pacific Realm
5. Why are Australia and New Zealand not included in this realm?
6. What does the term Melanesia mean?
7. Describe the political subdivision of New Guinea.
8. Do Antarctica and the Southern Ocean constitute a geographic
realm?
9. Why are states interested in making territorial claims in remote
Antarctica?
10. What does the term Micronesia mean?
11. Differentiate between high-island and low-island
cultures.
12. What does the term Polynesia mean?
13. How do Polynesians differ in their appearance from Melanesians?
14. Describe the current political geography of Polynesia.