Europe
Defining the Realm
Europe is not a continent. A continent is a very large landmass mostly separated from other large landmasses by water. Many geographers identify an Eurasian continent of Eurasia
Boundaries
Europe is well defined by water to the north, west, and south.
The eastern boundary does not have any physical barrier
Where is the Eastern Limit of Europe?
Ural Mountains deep into Russia? The boundary is placed between Russia and its numerous European Neighbors to the west. Because of territorial contrasts, and Cultural properties

If Europe is not a continent, what is it?
Realm of peninsulas
Islands
585million people
40 countries

What propelled Europe to World superpower?

Locational Advantage
Located at the heart of the land hemisphere
What are the advantages of Europe’s relative location?
Advantages of Europe’s Relative Location
• Maximum efficiency for contact with the rest of the world
• Almost nowhere in Europe is far from the sea
• The hundreds of miles of navigable waterways
• No place in Europe is very far from anyplace else on the continent

Physical Landscape
The Central Uplands
This forms The heart of Europe.It is a region of hills and plateaus
Contain the majority of Europe's coalfields
European center of the Industrial Revolution.
Served as a stimulus for the Agrarian Revolution.

The Alpine Mountains
Highland regions named after the Alps

The Western Uplands
Geologically older.More stable than the Alpine mountains

The Northern European Lowlands
Most densely populated. Also known as The Great European Plain. Most below 500 feet elevation. This is where most European major cities are located;
London,
Paris,
Amsterdam,
Copenhagen etc

Historical Geography of Europe
Europe’s first great civilizations were:
The Islands and Peninsulas of Greece and modern day Italy.

The Greeks
Greeks laid the foundation of Europe’s civilization. The civilization endured for 25 centuries
Ancient Greece benefited from Mesopotamian civilization

Achievements
Political science
Philosophy
Arts

Failures
– Unable to unify their domain
– Persistent conflict proved fatal when challenged by the Romans
– Collapsed by 147BC

The Romans
Present day Italy. They borrowed from Ancient Greece culture. Empire stretched from Britain to the Persian Gulf and from the Black sea to Egypt. Their urban population exceeded 1 million

Achievements
Local functional specialization e.g. Elba- mined Iron ores, Cartagena in Spain produced silver and lead,
Spread of Roman language,
Durable systems of education
Collapsed in the 5th Century

Impact of the fall of Roman Empire
Massive migration of Germanic and Slavic people to their present location
Arab Berbers Moors from North Africa, conquered most of Iberia and Penetrated France
The Ottoman Turks invaded Eastern Europe and reached the outskirts of Vienna

Europe’s Renaissance
Began fifteen century -1000years “dark and Middle ages”
Monarchies laid the foundation of Europe’s modern states
Mercantilism-the competitive accumulation of wealth in the form of gold and silver

Revolutions of Modernizing Europe
Two revolutions that shaped Europe
Agrarian Revolution
Industrial Revolution

Agrarian Revolution
Revolutionary changes in landownership and agricultural methods
Improved farm practices
Better equipments
Superior storage facilities
Introduction of new crops (US potatoes)-became staple crops for Europe
Efficient transport to the urban Market revolutionalized the country side

Von Thunen’s “Isolated States”
An estate farmer chronicled the geography of Europe’s agricultural transformation.
He used information from his farmstead to build his “model” of the location of productive activities in Europe’s farmlands. He published his work” isolated states” in 1826

Von Thunen’s Model Assumptions
A self-contained area (isolated state)
A single market
Homogenous landscape
Transport cost is directly proportional to distance
That every one is a rational being

Four zones Circling the Market Centre


Characteristics of Von Thunen’s model
Innermost ring adjacent to market-Zone of intensive farming: Perishable and highest priced products e.g. dairy, vegetables, fruits
Zone of Forest- used for timber and firewood
Zone of field crops, for example grains or potatoes
Pastures and livestock
Beyond –wilderness from where cost of transport to market would become prohibitive

Samuel van Valkenburg and Colbert map of Twentieth century Europe agricultural intensity
What are the challenges of Von Thunen’s theory?

2: Industrial Revolution
What Propelled Europe’s industrial Intensification?
The adoption of James Watt and others’ steam-driven engine.
The discovery of coal as superior substitute for charcoal in melting iron
The invention of the power loom
Ocean shipping

How did Britain become so important?
– All the innovations occurred in Britain
– The British also controlled the flow of raw materials
– Held a monopoly over essential global commodity: coal
– Had skilled labor that made the manufacturing machines

Alfred Weber-Factors of Industrial Location

Agglomerative factors
Deglomerative factors

Factors of location of Industries
Raw material
Power supply
Labor
Market
Transportation

Political Revolution
Political revolution in Europe pre-dates the agrarian or industrial revolution
The peace (treaty) of Westphalia in 1648
Ending decades of wars,
Recognition of territories, boundaries and the sovereignty of countries.
But lasted until 1806
French Revolution (1789-1795) also played a dramatic role in Europe’s political revolution

Is Europe a unified Continent?
Centripetal and centrifugal forces

Centripetal forces; are the forces that unite a state
E.g. General satisfaction with the system of government and administration, legal institutions (treatment of minorities)

Centrifugal forces disunite a state
Ex. Religion, race, language etc

Centrifugal Europe
n Indo-European languages not mutually understandable Ex. Hungarians and the Finns have other linguistic sources
English effectiveness declines from west to east.
Religious conflicts: sectarian strife in Northern Ireland
Religion and politics remain closely connected Ex. Germany’s Christian Democratic Union

What Unify Europe? Centripetal forces
Edward Ullman-an American geographer identified three key operating principles

COMPLEMENTARITY
Two places, through an exchange of goods, can specifically satisfy each other’s demands.
One area has a surplus of an item demanded by a second area.
Ex. Industrial Italy needs coal from western Europe. Western Europe needs Italy’s farm products.

TRANSFERABILITY
The ease with which a commodity may be transported or the capacity to move a good at a bearable cost. Europe has developed the most efficient and advanced transportation technology

INTEREVENING OPPORTUNITY
The presence of a nearer source of supply or opportunity that acts to diminish the attractiveness of more distant sources and sites

Urbanization
3 of every 4 Europeans live in towns and cities
Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) stimulated the growth of cities.
17% of the population lived in cities in 1801.
1851( 35%) and
1891( 54%).
An Urbanized Realm
73% of Europe’s population resides in cities and towns

Law of Primate city
Mark Jefferson’s law of primate city.
What is a primate city?
A city which is greater than two times the next largest city in a nation. Very expressive of the national culture and often the capital city.
A primate city is a country's financial, political, and population centre.
Examples of European Primate cities
The best-known examples of primate cities perhaps are:
London,
Paris,
Warsaw

Europe’s changing population
Europe’s population is actually shrinking.
Average family must bear 2.1 children to keep a population from shrinking
Europe was 1.4 in 2003
Italy and Spain, recorded below 1.3 (the lowest ever seen in any human population)

Europe’s Modern Transformation
Much of Europe lay shattered after WWII
The former Soviet controlled much of Eastern Europe
Whole of Europe was poised towards a communist empire
1947 George Marshall, US Secretary of States, proposed a European recovery Program

Marshall Plan
To counter the powerful force of the Soviet Union
To create stable political conditions and ensure democracy in Europe
US provided 13 Billion dollars in assistance to Europe
The Soviet Union refused the offer and forced its Eastern European satellites to join.
Marshall plans applied to only 16 countries including Germany and Turkey.

Impact of the Marshall Plan
Stimulated the European economy
It set the platform for European Union.
How?
The need to coordinate the financial assistance from US
To ease the flow of resources and products across Europe’s many boundaries,
To Lower restrictive tariffs
To seek political cooperation

First Union-Benelux
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg, formulated and signed the Benelux Agreement in 1944. The Benelux precedent helped speed the creation of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC)
OEEC to coordinate the investment of American Aid.
1949 The Council of Europe was created.
This became the first European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg - France

Supranationalism
It is the voluntary association in economic, political or cultural sphere of three or more independent states willing to yield some measure of sovereignty for their mutual benefit
Europe’s Supranationalism

Hint
What are the EU members?
and non EU members?
What European countries use the EURO and what European countries do not?

Prospects of EU
– Combined population of more than 450 million,
– EU Constitutes one of the world’s richest market
– Member-states accounts for more than 40% of the world’s exports

Devolution:
a regional drive for autonomy, or for outright secession.

Devolution forces in Europe
The British Isles- Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Spain- devolution forces in its Basque area, Catalonia and Galicia
France- islands of Corsica
Italy –devolutionary pressures in southern Tyrol and Lombardy
Eastern Europe- the collapse of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, led to the Fragmentation of Moldova,

Other Disuniting Forces
Emergence of powerful urban regions as centers of economic powers and influence, beyond the control of the government . The Four Motors of Europe
Kenichi Ohmae, a Japanese economist, calls such economic powerhouses as Regional States
Rhone-Alpes region in France (Lyon)
Lombardy in Italy (focused on Milan)
Catalonia in Spain (Barcelona)
Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany headquarted in Stuttgart

Russia
• Territorially Russia is the world’s largest state
• The Northern most country in the world
• Three times size of the United States, and China
• It stretches across 11 time zones

Size, Location and Space Relationships
Latitudinal extent
• More than 75% of Russia lies pole-wards of the 49th parallel (north of the U.S.-Canadian boundary).
• Moscow is farther north than Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.


Longitudinal extent
• Longitudinal extent
More than twice its maximum north-south extent and extends through 11 time zones
• Russia makes up 76.6% of the total territory of the former USSR (almost twice the size of the US).

Russia

• The capital is Moscow.
• St. Petersburg an important administrative, business and cultural center
• Russia has more than one thousand cities and towns.
• The largest cities,
• Moscow (more than 9 million people),
• St. Petersburg -4.7 million people),

Climate

What is climate?
CLIMATOLOGY
• Climate
qAverage weather conditions for a given area over an extended period of time

Weather
• Weather
q The atmospheric conditions at a specific place and time
Climatology
• Climatology
qA branch of physical geography
qConcerned with Spatial arrangement of climate over the surface of the earth and the processes which contribute to the distribution

Russia: Climate
Latitudinal Position:
• Only small parts of Russia are south of latitude 50°
• More than half of the country is north of 60° north latitude,
• Extensive regions experience six months of snow cover over subsoil.
• Permafrost- as far as several hundred meters.


Continental Position
• Russia has a largely continental climate because of its sheer size and compact configuration.
• Most of its land is more than 400 kilometers from the sea, and the center is 3,840 kilometers from the sea.

Continental Extent
LOCATION OF MAJOR MOUNTAINS

• Russia's mountain ranges, predominantly to the south and the east, block moderating temperatures from the Indian and Pacific oceans

Russia: Brief History

• The Tzars laid the foundation for the Russian empire. Under the Tzars, Russia grew from nation into empire
• Russia’s empire expanded and had territories as far as Alaska and San Francisco in North America


Fall of the Tzar
• Internal weaknesses (such as peasant rebellion, unpaid and poorly fed armies) affected the power of the czars
• The Tzar empire began to fall at the beginning of the twentieth century ( 1905)
• Nicholas II- the last Tzar was overthrown in 1917
• The Tzar and his family were executed
The Soviet Union
• The old capital of Russia- St Petersburg, was renamed Leningrad in honor of the revolutionary leader
• Moscow was chosen as the new capital for a country with a new name, the Soviet Union
• The Union consisted of 15 political entities, each a Socialist Republic.
• Russia was one of these republics
• The other Republics were minorities that were colonized by the Tzars

Former Soviet Union
The Soviet Economic Framework
• Founding of the soviet union was accompanied by an economic experiment- From Czarist autocratic capitalism to Communism
• 1920 onwards,
• The soviet planner had two principal objectives:
• To accelerate industrialization
• To collectivize agriculture
Soviet collectivize agriculture
• Agriculture was organized into huge state-run enterprise
• Holdings of large landowners were expropriated
• Private farms were taken away from farmers
• Lands were consolidated into collective farms
• Sovkhoz was the initial idea- literally means a grain and meat factory in which agriculture was highly mechanized with minimum labor requirement
• The objective was to free hundreds of thousands of workers to labor in factories
• This idea was opposed by many farmers


• In the 1930s in an effort to clump down the protesters of his Sovkhoz concept, Stalin confisticated Ukraine’s agriculture outputs, sealed the part of the border between Russia and Ukraine,.
• This led to a famine that killed millions of farmers and their families
• It is estimated that 30 to 60 million people lost their lives from imposed starvation, political purges and forced relocation
The soviet command economy
• The state assigned the production of particular manufactures to particular places, often disregarding the rule of economic geography
Impact
• Manufacturing became extremely expensive
• In the absence of competition, managers became complacent
• Workers became less productive

The Soviet Union
• Total electrification of the country. The Plan was developed in 1920 and covered a ten to 15 year period
• One party system to ensure capitalist exploitation would not return to the Soviet Union
• Lenin Died in 1924 and replaced by Joseph Stalin
Stalin’s Soviet
• Introduced the First Five-Year Plan for building a socialist economy
• The state assumed control over all existing enterprises
• In agriculture, collective farms were established all over the country
• Resistance from Wealthy farmers led to famine and starvation
• Stalin poised to eliminate “old Bolsheviks”

Stalin’s soviet
• Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953.
• Nikita Khrushchev, won the power struggle by the mid-1950s
• denounced Stalin's use of repression in 1956 and eased repressive controls over party and society known as: de-Stalinization
• He was removed from power in 1964

Mikhail Gorbachev
• Beginning in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy
• Policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship.
• In the late 1980s, the constituent republics of the Soviet Union started legal moves towards or even declaration of sovereignty over their territories
Soviet Transformation
• In 1989, Russia, which was then the largest constituent republic convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies
• Boris Yeltsin was elected the chairman of the Congress.
• On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory
Referendum
• A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on March 17, 1991- majority for preservation of the union
• Attempted coup.
• Gorbechev lost control
• Yeltsin became more powerful
• In August, 1991, Latvia and Estonia declared independence following Lithuania in 1990

Fall of USSR
• On December 8, 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in its place
• December 25th 1991, Gorbechev resigned as president of USSR. Turned power to Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia


Russia
Russia Frontiers


• Russia shares boundaries with 12 countries
- Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Mongolia, North Korea, China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia

Urban Geography
• About 73% urbanized
• Urbanization in Russia is a development of the twentieth century. EX.
– 1920s: less than one-fifth of the population was urbanized
– 1940s: one-third of the population was classified as urban.
– 1960: just under one-half of the population (then 210,000,000) lived in cities and towns.

Settlement Patterns
• Population concentration in the west and southwest, where the climatic conditions are least difficult.
• The former Soviet Union encouraged people to move eastward.
• About 25,000,000 people migrated internally from west to east, causing rapid growth in some difficult environments, like Sakha (Yakutiya).
•


Russians in North America
• Alaska.
• U.S. Secretary of State William Seward bought Alaska from the government of Russia for $7.2 million –
• “Seward’s Folly” and “Seward’s Icebox.”
• Seward has been vindicated as Alaska’s wealth in gold and petroleum have been discovered, as well as it’s strategic location for U.S. defense.

Russia: People and Language
Russia
• The population is as varied as the terrain.
• Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) are the most numerous of the more than 100 European and Asiatic nationalities.
Russia: People and Language

• There are 145 million people constantly living in Russia. They are represented by more than 100 nationalities speaking their own languages.
• Tatars (3.8%),
• Ukrainians (3%),
• Chuvashs (1.2%),
• Bashkirs (0.9%),
• Byelorussians (0.8%),
• Mordvinians (0.7%), Germans and Chechens (0.6% each), Avarians, Armenians, Jews (0.4% each) and other people.
•

Population ctn.
• Russian population is declining; from 147,300,000 in 1997, down to 145,500,000 in 2002
• It is projected that there will be only 100million Russian citizens by the year 2050
• Life expectancy has declined from 64 years ( 10 years ago) to now 54 years for males
• 74 years for females to 72 for females
What are the causes of Russia’s Population decline?
Major causes of Russia’s population decline
• Incidence of infectious diseases like Tuberculosis affects more than 200,000.
• Alcohol consumption – accidents
• Deaths from circulatory diseases, often associated with stress, -following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia: declining population: causes
• Almost five million Russians were killed during the collectivization period of the early 1930s because of famines and state directed killings.

• World War I, its aftermath of civil war and the attendant famines killed 17 million Russians and about eight million deficit births (i.e., births that would have taken place, but did not due to the dramatic reduction in population.
Aging Population of Russia, what are the implications on Socio-economic development?


Russia’ Prospect
The heartland Theory
• Mackinder noted that large areas subject to penetration along river routes were vulnerable to a strong maritime power.

• Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) theorized that, western Russia and Eastern Europe enjoyed a combination of natural protection and resource wealth that would someday propel its occupants to world power
• A large area of Eurasia, not penetrated by navigable rivers, would be safe as a fortress and thus, able to develop strength in its secure isolation.

• This Pivot Area, was located in western Russia, stretching from the Moscow Basin, Across the Volga Valley and the Urals into central Siberia.

• The pivot area would be of crucial significance in the political geography of the 20th century;
• any power based in the pivot area could gain strength sufficient to eventually rule the world:

The Heartland theory

• He Who rules East Europe commands the heartland
– He Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island
– He Who rules the World Island commands the World


Critics of the theory
• Nicholas Spykman in 1944 emphasized the role of the Rimland in controlling the heartland.
• He calculated that Eurasia's periphery, not its core held the key to global power
• Spykman foresaw the rise of rimland states as superpowers and viewed Japan’s emergence to wealth and power as just the beginning of that process
Chechnya

• Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim republic that
• resisted Russian colonization in the nineteenth century.
• During the rule of Stalin, Chechens were exiled to Siberia because they collaborated with the Nazis.
• They were allowed to return by Khrushchev in the 1950s.

Chechen
• Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechen fought the Russians to a stalemate.
• For economic and political reasons, Moscow has never granted Chechnya its independence

Chechnya
• Since 1994, there has been a state of warfare between Chechen rebels and Russian troops..

• On Oct. 23, 2002, Chechen rebels seized a crowded Moscow theater and detained 763 people, including 3 Americans.

• Russian Government forces stormed the theater the next day, after releasing a gas into the theater, which killed not only all the terrorists, but more than 100 of the hostages.

Other countries in the Region
1. Armenia
2. Georgia
3. Azerbaijan


Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan
Transcaucasia Transition Zone
• Armenia:
– Is a landlocked country that occupies some of the earthquake prone regions of Transcaucasia.
– It is the smallest of the three countries of the TTZ.

Armenia
– Armenia is rich in mineral and produces a variety of fruits and vegetables. It has a plentiful supply of hydroelectric power.
– Yerevan, the capital city, is within sight of the Turkish border.



Transcaucasian Transition Zone
• Azerbaijan
– Azerbaijan is the largest in area and population of the three TTZ countries.
– Predominantly Shi’ite Muslim (like Iran),
– Azerbaijan is rich in oil from the oilfields in the region of the county’s capital, Baki (Baku).
Azerbaijan

• Georgia

– The capital city is Tbilisi.
– The country has 4,700,000 people, 70% of whom are Georgian. Minorities include Armenians (9%); Russian (7%); Azeris (5%) and smaller proportions of Ossetians,and Abkhazians.