Political Geography

Today we were introduced to a new unit of our Human Geography class: Political Geography. On slide one of Mr. Schick's presentation was the question, 'How is the world organized?' The world is organized first by country, than by nation, and finally by state. A country is an identifiable land area. a nation is a population, or group of people, with a common culture. Finally, a state is a population under a single government and this term can be synonymous with 'country'. In the 'Nation' status a group of people with a shared identity, think of it as a culture group. Here is the 'not-universally-true' definition of Nation: nations are groups of people larger than a single tribe or community, which may share a common language, institutions, religion, and/or historical experience. The institution part of this definition stirred a bit of confusion in the class. The dictionary definition for institution is a significant practice, relationship, or organization in a society or culture. In the end an institution can be anything from a sports stadium to a fast food establishment. An independent state has space or territory which has internationally recognized boundaries, has people who live there on an ongoing basis, has economic activity and an organized economy which regulates foreign and domestic trade and issues money, and finally, for today, has the power os social engineering, such as education. This is where we left off this class. 

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