THE CULTURAL EBOOK

218 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

-·· CONFLICTING PERSPECTIVES PALESTINIAN PERSPECTIVES. Five groups of people
OF THE HOLY LAND consider themselves Palestinians:

• People living in the West Bank, Gaza, and EastJerusalem
territories captured by Israel in 1967

Learning Outcome 6.4.4 • Some citizens of Israel who are Arabs
Describe differences in geographic frameworks in
the Middle East. • People who fled from Israel to other countries after the
1948-1949 war
After the 1973 war, the Palestinians emerged as Israel's
principal opponent. Egypt and Jordan renounced their • People who fled from the West Bank or Gaza to other
claims to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, respectively, countries after the 1967 Six-Day War
and recognized the Palestinians as the legitimate rulers of
these territories. The Palestinians in turn also saw them- • Citiz.ens of other countries, especially Jordan, Lebanon,
selves as the legitimate rulers of Israel. Palestinian and Syria, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, who identify them.
Israeli perspectives over the future of Palestine/Israel have selves as Palestinians
not been reconciled over the past four decades.
The Palestinian fight against Israel was coordinated by
ISRAELI PERSPECTIVES. In dealing with its neighbors, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under the
Israel considers two elements of the local landscape longtime leadership of Yassir Arafat, until his death in
especially meaningful: 2004. Israel has permitted the organization of a limited
• Israel is a very small country (smaller than New form of government in much of the West Bank and Gaza,
called the Palestinian Authority, but Palestinians are not
Hampshire), with aJewish majority, surrounded by a re- satisfied with either the territory or the power they have
gion of hostile Muslim Arabs encompassing more than received thus far.
25 million square kilometers (10 million square miles).
Israel's people Jive extremely close to international bor- The Palestinians have been divided by sharp differ-
ders, making them vulnerable to attack. ences, reflected in a struggle for power between the Fatah
and Hamas parties. Some Palestinians, especially those
• Palestine is divided into three narrow, roughly parallel aligned with the Fatah Party, are willing to recogniz.e the
physical regions (Figure 6-51): state of Israel with its Jewish majority in exchange for re-
turn of all territory taken by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day
War. Other Palestinians, especially those aligned with the
Hamas Party, do not recognize the right of Israel to exist

• A coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea 'f FIGURE 6-51 ISRAEL/PALESTINEPHYSICALGEOGRAF'HYThe
• A series of hills reaching elevations above 1,000 physicagl eographyof Israel/Palestinceonsistsof narrowcoastalowlandsand
interiorhighlandsinterruptedby theJordanRivervalley.
meters (3,300 feet)
• The Jordan River valley, much of which is below sea

level Oev11tianff1lNlets LEBANON!
-900-1200
The UN plan for the partition of the Palestine Mandate /_,....:. ,I /
in 1947 (as modified by the armistice ending the 1948- &,.C,M,!X.I...,
1949 war) allocated most of the coastal plain to Israel, ..,ttE"GIGOHLTASN~
whereas Jordan took most of the hills between the coastal 1»-,-2~
plain and the Jordan River valley, a region generally called -RIA
the West Bank (of the Jordan River). farther north, Israel's Mediterranean
territory extended eastward to the Jordan River valley, but Sea ':,
Syria control1ed the highlands east of the valley, known as

the Golan Heights.
Jordan and Syria used the hills between 1948 and 1967

as staging areas to attack Israeli settlements on the adja-
cent coastal plain and in the Jordan River valley. Israel cap-
tured these highlands during the 1967 war to stop attacks
on the lowland population concentrations. Israel still has
military control over the Golan Heights and West Bank a
generation later, yet attacks by Palestinians against Israeli
citizens have continued.

Israeli Jews were divided for many years between those
who wished to retain the disputed territories and those
who wished to make compromises with the Palestinians. In
recent years, a large majority of Israelis have supported con-
struction of a barrier to deter Palestinian attacks (refer to the
Sustainability and Inequality in Our Global Village box).

Chapter 6: Religions 219

and want to continue fighting for control of the entire ter- to the settlements because of a shortage of affordable hous-
ritory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean ing inside Israel's pre-1967 borders. Jewish settlers comprise
sea. The United States, European countries, and Israel con- about 10 percent of the West Bank population, and Palestin-
sider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. ians see their immigration as a hostile act. To protect the set-
tlers, Israel has military control over most of the West Bank.
After capturing the West Bank from Jordan in 1967,
Israel permitted Jewish settlers to construct more than 100 Pause and Reflect 6.4.4
settlements in the territory (refer to Figure 6-51 in the Sus- What is the difference in elevation between Hebron
tainability and Inequality in our Global Village feature). (the largest city in the West Bank) and Tel Aviv (the
some Israelis built settlements in the West Bank because they largest city in Israel)?
regarded the territory as an Integral part of the biblical Jew-
ish homeland, known as Judea and Samaria. Others migrated

SUSTAINABILITAYND INEQUALITYIN OURGLOBALVILLAGE

West BankBarrier:SecurityFence
or SegregationWall

Constructing a barrier to keep out according to various sources (Fig- in West Bank settlements that most
the unwanted is one of the oldest of ure 6-52). other countries consider illegal.
geographic tools. The United States
is using thb tool today, building a According to Israel's government, Naming the structure is con-
fence along the border with \.!exico the routes of the barrier were se- troversial. Israel calls the barrier a
(refer to Figure 3-.19 in Chapter 3). lected for two technical reasons: "security fence," and Palestinians call
it a "racial segregation wall." Neutral
l"odeter Palestinian suicide bomb- • The area had to be wide enough sources call it a "separation barrier."
er, from crossing into Israel, the to make comtruction of a barrier
lsracli government has constructed 60-meters (200 feet) wide The Israel Supreme Court has
barriers along the West Bank and the feasible.
t;aza Strip. The Wc~t Bdnk barrier is rn·icc declared portions of the route
e,pecially controversial because it • High ground was placed on the
place~ on hrael's side around 10 per- Israeli side. illegal because Palestinian rights
cent of the land, home to between were violated. The barrier made
10,000 and 50,000 Palestini.ins, Critics charge that the circuitous daily life unsustainable for some
route was chosen to encompas, Palestiniam: rhey could no longer
most of the 327,000 hraelis living reach their fields, water sources, and
ph1ces of work.

0:

N

Israel •·- 8arrle1

L'========_:Jc::=::'.....WesBt a~k o 111aes1e1ttlement
,i. FIGURE6-52 WESTBANK SEPARATIONBARRIER (left)Routeof thebarrier(.right)Thebarrier
__J separatingPalestinianland(foregroundf)romJewishsettlemennt ear Jerusalem{rear).

220 THE CULTURALLANDSCAPE

Babylonians in 586 a.c. After the Persian Empire, led by

JERUSALEM: CONTESTED GEOGRAPHY Cyrus the Great, gained control of Jerusalem in 614 s.c.
Jews were allowed to build a Second Temple in 5l 6 s.c. ThJ

Learning Outcome 6.4.5 Romans destroyed the Jewish Second Temple in A.D. 70
The Western Wall of the Temple survives.
Explain the importance of Jerusalem to Jews
and Muslims. Christians and Muslims call the Western Wall the Wail,
ing Wall because for many centuries Jews were allowed tr

visit the surviving Western Wall only once a year to !amen

One of the most intractable obstacles to comprehensive the Temple's destruction. After Israel captured the entirl
peace in the Middle East is the status of Jerusalem (Fig- city of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, it removec
ure 6-53). As long as any one religion-Jewish, Muslim, or the barriers that had prevented Jews from visiting am
Christian-maintains exclusive political control over Jeru- living in the Old City of Jerusalem, including the West
salem, the other religious groups will not be satisfied. But em Wall. The Western Wall soon became a site for dail•
Israelis have no intention of giving up control of the Old prayers by observant Jews.

City of Jerusalem, and Palestinians have no intention of

giving up their claim to it. ISLAM'S JERUSALEM. The most important Muslin

The geography of Jerusalem makes it difficult if not structure in Jerusalem is the Dome of the Rock, built in 69

impossible to settle the long-standing religious conflicts. (Figure 6-54). Muslims believe that the large rock beneatl

The difficulty is that the most sacred space in Jerusalem the building's dome is the place from which Muhamma

for Muslims was literally built on top of the most sacred ascended to heaven, as well as the altar on which Abrahar

space for Jews. prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac (according to Jews an

Christians) or his son Ishmael (according to Muslims

JUDAISM'S JERUSALEM. Jerusalem is especially holy Immediately south of the Dome of the Rock is the al-Aqs

to Jews as the location of the Temple, their center of Mosque. The challenge facing Jews and Muslims is th,

worship in ancienUimes. The First Temple, built by King al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the site of the ruins of th

Solo~on in appro,cimateiy 960 s.c. was destroyed by the Jewish Second Temple. Thus, the surviving Western Wa

of the Jewish Temple is situated immediately beneath hol

Muslim structures.

Israel allows Muslims unlimited a

cess to that religion's holy structun

in Jerusalem and some control ov,

them. Ramps and passages patroll{

by Palestinian guards provide Mu

lims access to the Dome of the Ro<

and the al-Aqsa Mosque without ha

ing to walk in front of the Weste,

Wall, where Jews are praying. Ho,

ever, because the holy Muslim stru

tures sit literally on top of the ho

Jewish structure, the two sets of ho

structures cannot be logica!Jy divid•

by a line on a map (Figure 6-55).

The ultimate obstacle to comp1

hensive peace in the Middle East

the status of Jerusalem. As long

any one religion-Jewish, Muslim,

Christian-maintains exclusive poli

cal control over Jerusalem, the ott

religious groups will not be satisfa

But Israelis have no intention of g

ing up control of the Old City

Jerusalem, and Palestinians have

A intention of giving up their claim to

N Valley of ◄ FIGURE6-53 OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM
OldCityof Jerusalemis lessthan1square
MountOphel Kfdron
(City of David)
kilometer(0.4 squaremiles).It is dividedinto fo

quarter.s

.,4111111■11 I''l'I'' '·11I•I1'1
.' I I II·1' 1I1I :I I II 1·I1•I · I' 11·1,·I1·' 1I ··'. 'I '1'1I '1I 11'.I·11I· '
•• t.
1 ·III I , ,, I ''111'
II ' I I ' I ' I
II ' I
''

Chapter 6: Religions 221

Pause and Reflect 6.4.5
Why are the Western Wall important in Judaism and
the Dome of the Rock important in Islam?

& FIGURE6-54 DOME OF THE ROCK Thelargerock,whichis underthe CHECK-IN:KEY ISSUE4
goldendomeof the Domeof the Rockis believedbyJews,Christiansa,nd
Muslimsto bethe placewhereAbrahamwaspreparedto sacrificehisson.The Why Do Territorial Conflicts Arise among
sonto besacrificedwasIsaacaccordingto JewsandChristiansa,ndIshmael Religious Groups?
accordingto Muslims.
✓ Religious groups have opposed government
policies, especially those of Communist
governments.

✓ Religious principles seen as representing
Western social values have been opposed by
groups in Asia.

✓ An especially long-standing and intractable
conflict among religious has been centered in
Israel/Palestine, an area considered holy by
Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

4 FIGURE6-55 WESTERN WALLAND DOMEOFTHE ROCK A crowdof Jewsareprayingat theWestern
Wall(right),situatedimmediatelybelowthe mountcontainingIslam'sDomeof the Rock(top left)andal-Aqsa
Mosque(top right).

222 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Summary and Review KEY ISSUE2

1KEY ISSUE Why Do Religions Have Different Distributions?

Where Are Religions Distributed? A universalizing religion has a known origin and clear patterns
of diffusion, whereas ethnic religions typically have unknown
Religions are classified as universalizing or ethnic. The world origins and little diffusion.
has three large universalizing religions-Christianity, Islam,
and Buddhism, each of which is divided into branches and LEARNINGOUTCOME6.2.1: Describe the process of origin of uni-
denominations. Hinduism is the largest ethnic religion. versalizing religions.

LEARNINGOUTCOME6.1.1: Describe the distribution of the major • A universalizing religion originated with a single historical
religions. individual.

• Christianity predominates in Europe and the Western LEARNINGOUTCOME6.2.2: Understand differences in the origin
Hemisphere, Buddhism in East Asia, Hinduism in South Asia, of universalizing and ethnic religions.
and Islam in other regions of Asia, as well as North Africa.
• Ethnic religions typically have unknown origins.
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.1.2: Describe the distribution of the major
branches of Christianity. LEARNINGOUTCOME6.2.3: Describe the process of diffusion of
universalizing religions.
• Christianity is divided into three main branches: Roman
Catholic, which predominates in southwest Europe and • Universalizing religions have diffused from their place of ori-
Latin America; Protestant, which predominates in northwest gin to other regions of the world.
Europe and North America; and Orthodox, which predomi-
nates in Eastern Europe. LEARNINGOUTCOME6.2.4: Compare the diffusion of universal-
izing and ethnic religions.
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.1.3: Identify the major branches of Islam
and Buddhism. • Ethnic religions typically do not diffuse far from their place
of origin.
• Islam's two major branches are Sunni and Shiite. The two
largest branches of Buddhism are Mahayana and Theravada. THINKING GEOGRAPHICALLY6.2: People carry their religious be-
liefs with them when they migrate. Over time, change occurs in
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.1.4: Describe the distribution of the larg- the regions from which most U.S. immigrants originate and in
est ethnic religions. the U.S. regions where they settle. How has the distribution of
U.S. religious groups been affected by these changes?
• Hinduism is clustered primarily in India. Other ethnic reli-
gions with the largest numbers of followers are clustered else- GOOGLEEARTH6.2: Fly to 80 Ft Tall Lord Buddha, Bodhgaya,
where in Asia. Bihar, India, click on 3D Buildings, and switch to ground-level
view. Pan around the statue; what other Buddhist structure is vis-
THINKING GEOGRAPHICALLY6.1: Islam seems strange and threat- ible in 3D?
ening to some people in predominantly Christian countries. To
what extent is this attitude shaped by knowledge of the teachings
of Muhammad and the Quran, and to what extent is it based on
lack of knowledge of the religion?

GOOGLEEARTH6.1: The large square in front of Saint Peter's Ba-
silica, in the Vatican, is the length of approximately how many
football fields?

Key Terms Cosmogony (p. 204) A set ol rdigiou~ beli~ts contcrmng the origin of
the univer~e.
Agnosticism (p. 184) Behef that nothing can be known about whether
Denomination (p. 186) A division ol ~ br,1nch that unilcs a number of
Gud exists. lornl rnngregation~ into a single legal and admim,trative body.

Animism (p. 191) Bt:iicfthat objects such as plants and stones, or natu- EUmic religion (p. 184),\ rl'iigion with a rclallvcly cnncentrated spatial di~-
ral event~, 11"-etlrnnder~torm~ and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit tribution "hose principle.. are like!} tu l>ebased on the ph},1cai charact1:1-
and conscious lire. • lsU,, of the particular lot,1t1on in which it; adherent\ are concentr,1ted.

Atheism (p. 1841 Belief that God docs not t•xisr. Fundamentalhm (p. 212) Literal intnpretalion and strict adhl•rence 10
basic principles of a religion (ur a religious brand1, denommatlcm, or
Autonomous religion (p. 211) ,\ rdigion that doe~ nut have a central sect).

authority but shares ideas and cooperates mformall}', Ghetto (p. 199) Ouring the '.'vliddle/\gcs, a neighborhood 111ant\' set up
by law to be inhabited uniy by Jews; now u,ed to denote a seUion of
Hranch (p. 186) A large and fundamental division within a religion. a city in which members of an} minority group li\'e ~cause of social,
Caste {p. 213) The class or dbtinct hereditary order into which a Hindu legal, or economic pre);ure.
ls assigned, according to religious law.
Hierarchical religion Ip 210) •\ religion in "hich a centr~I auth,>rity ex-
erci,e; a h 1gh degree of control.

:-1issionary (p. 196) An mdi\'ldual who helps to diffuse a univcr,al-
1zing religion.

Monothehm (p. 191 >The doctrine of or belld in lhe C'xi,tence of only
one God.

Chapter 6: Religions 2'13

KEYISSUE3 KEY ISSUE4

wti Do Religions Organize Space in Distinctive Why Do Territorial Conflicts Arise among Religious
Pat arns? Groups?

Holy places and holidays in a univeroalfzlng religi.on are re1ated to With Earth's surface dominated by four large relfgions, e;i<ipanslon
events in the life of its founder or prophet and are related to the of the teuitory occupied by one religion may reduce the territory
local physical geography in an ethnic religion. Religic,msaffect
the landscape in other ways: Religious commlm.ities are built, ot another. In add1tio..n,religions must compete for control of
religious toponyms mark the landscape, and extensive tracts are
reserved for burying the tlead. territory with nonrellgic,us ideas, notably c0mmunlsm and
economic modernization.
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.3.1: Compare the role of places ofwoi;ship
in various religions. LEARNINGOUTCOME6.4.1: Understand reasons for religious c;on-
flicts arising from government policies.
• Religions have places of worship, but these places play differ-
ing roles for the various religicms. • Religlons can come into conflict With g0vernment policies,
social c.hanges, or other religi©ns.
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.3.2: Explain why places are sacre.din uni-
versaUzing religions. LEARNINGOUTCOME6_4.2: Summarize reasons for conflicts be-
tween_religjons.
• In universalizing religions, holy places derive from events in
the founder's life. • Conflicts among religions have been especially strong in
Ireland and in the Middle East.
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.3.3: Analyze the 1mportance of the physi-
cal geography in ethnic religions. LEARNINGOUTCOME6.4.3: Analyze reasons for religious conflict
in the Middle East.
• In ethnic religions, holy places derive from the physical geog-
raphy where the religion's adherents are clustered. • Religious conflict in the Middle East goes back thousands of
years. Jews, Muslims, and Christians have fought for control
LEARNINGOUTCOME6.3.4: Describe ways In which the landscape of the Middle East !"andthat ls now part of Israel/Palestine.
i5used in religiously significant ways.
LEARNING OUTCOME6.4.4: Describe differences in geographic
• Religions have varying practices for handling the dead. frameworks in the Middle East.

LEARNINGOUTCOME6.3.5: Compare the calendars and holidays • Combatants in the Middle East have different perspectives on
of ethnic and universalizing religions. the division of land in the area.

• In ethnic religions, holidays derive from the physical geogra- LEARNINGOUTCOME6.4.5: Explain the importance of Jerusalem
phy where the religion is clustered. to Jews and Muslims.

LEARNINGOUTCOME6.3.6: Compare the administrative organi- • The most sacred space in Jerusalem for Muslims was built on
zation of hierarchical and locally autonomous religions. top of the most sacred space for Jews.

• Religions can be divided into those that are administered THINKINGGEOGRAPHICALL6Y.4: Sharp differences in demo-
through a hierarchy and those that are locally autonomous. graphic characteristics, such as natural increase, crude birth, and
migration rates, can be seen amongJews, Christians, and Muslims
THINKINGGEOGRAPHICALL6Y.3: Some Christians believe that in the Middle East and between Roman Catholics and Protestants
they should be prepared to carry the word of God and the teach- in Northern Ireland. How might demographic differences affect
ings of Jesus to people who have not been exposed to them, at future relationships among the groups in these two regions?
any time and at any place. Are missionary activities equally likely
to occur at any time and at any place, or are some places more GOOGLEEARTH6.4: The Abraj Al Bait (Royal Hotel Clock Tower)
suited than others? Why? in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the taUest hotel in the world, towers over
what holy Muslim structure described in this chapter?
GOOGLEEARTH6.3:
What is the physi-
cal environment
around Badrinath
Temple, one of Hin-
du's holiest temples,
to Vishnu, in Badri-
nath, India?

Pagan (p. 190) A followerof a po[ytheistic religion. MasteringGeographyTM

Pilgrimage (p. 202) .'\ journey to a place considered sacred for religious Looking for additional review and test prep materials?
purpose,. Visit the Study Area in MasteringGeography™ to
enhance your geographic literacy, spatial reasoning skills,
Polytheism (p. 191) Beliefin or worship of more rhan one god. and understanding of this chapter's content by accessing
a variety of resources, including MapMaster'"interactive
Sect 1.p. 186) A relativel>• ,mall group that has broken away from an maps, videos, RSSfeeds, flashcards, web links, self-study
established denomination. quizzes, and an eText version of The Cultural Landscape.
www.masteringgeography.com
Solstice (p. 205) An astronomical event that happens twice each year,
when the tilt of Earth's axis is most indined toward or away from the
S11n,causing the Sun', apparent position in the sky to reach 1t mo,t
northernmost or southernmost extreme, and resulting In lhe shortest
and longest days of the year.

Syncretic (p. 190) A religionthat combines sevtraJ traditions.

Universalizing religion (p. 184) A rdigi,>n that attempts to ~pp ea! to all
people, not just those livingin a particular location.

Ethnicities

Whywas this bridge blown up7 Page250 Whyare thesepeopleburningtorcheson a mountain?Page243

1KEY ISSUE KEY ISSUE-2--

Where Are WhyDo
Ethnicities Ethnicities Have
Distributed?
Distinctive
Distributions?

A World of Ethnicitiesp. 227 EthnicSegregationp. 232

Hispanics,African Americans,andAsianAmericansare the most Migration of ethnicities can result in patterns of segregation,
numerousU.S.ethnicities. sometimescausedby discrimination.

224

Mi .ASouthAfricais a countryof ethnic diversity.
Between 1948,and 1994,the whites who coll-
Chicago, p. 231 trolledthe governmentenacted lawsknownas
apartheid that segregated the country'sethnic-
t-=-,.[ Los Angelos, p. 231 ities, Most of the rights of people other than
,; whitesweretaken away.Thelawshave been re-
' pealed, but matlysymbolsoi apartheid remain
in SouthAfriGai,ncludingthese benchesoutside
the lawcourt in CapeTown.

KEY ISSUE3 KEY ISSUE4
----
Why Do Conflicts
Arise among WhyDo
Ethnicities? Ethnicities
Engage in Ethnic
Cleansing and
Genocide?

EthnicDiversityp. 238 EthnicCleansingp. 246

1, Ethnicitiescompete to control portions of Earth'ssurface. At its most extreme,competition among ethnic groups has led

to atrocities.

225

........ • To what extent should the distinct cultural identity of
ethnicities be encouraged or protected?
Introducing
Geographers are interested in where ethnicities are dis-
Ethnicities tributed across space, like other elements of culture (Figure
7-1). An ethnic group is tied to a particular place because
Few humans live in total isolation. People members of the group-or their ancestors-were born and
are members of groups with which they raised there. The cultural traits displayed by an ethnic-
share important attributes. If you are a cit- ity derive from particular conditions and practices in the
izen of the United States of America, you group's homeland.
are identified as an American, which is a
nationality. The reason ethnicities hnve distinctive traits should by
now be familiar. Like other cultural elements, ethnic iden-
Many Americans fttrther identify themselves as belonging tity derives from the interplay of con11ectio11wsith other
to an ethnicity, a group with which they share cultural groups and isolation from them.
background. One-third of Americans identify their eth-
nicity as African American, Hispanic, or Asian American. Ethnicity is an especially Important cultural element
Other Americans identify v,'ith ethnicities tracing back to of local ruversity because our ethnic identity is immuta-
Europe. ble. We can deny or suppress our ethnicity, but we can-
not choose to change it in the same way we can choose to
Ethnicity is a source of pride to people, a link to the speak a rufferent language or practice a different religion.
experiences of ancestors and to cultural traditions, such If our parents come from two ethnic groups or our grand-
as food and music preferences. The ethnic group to which parents from four, our ethnic identity may be extremely
one belongs has important measurable differences, such as diluted, but it never completely disappears.
average income, life expectancy, and infant mortality rate.
Ethnicity also matters in places with a history of discrimi- The study of ethnicity lacks the tension in scnle be-
nation by one ethnic group against another. tween preservation of local dh:ersity and globalization ob-
served in other cultural elements. Despite efforts to preserve
The significance of ethnic diversity is controversial in local langiiages, it is not far-fetched to envision a world
the United States: in which virtually all educated people speak English. And
• To what extent does discrimination persist against mi- universalizing religions continue to gain adherents around
the world. But no ethnicity is attempting or even aspiring
nority ethnicities, especial!} African Americans and to achieve global dominance, although ethnic groups are
Hispanics? fighting with each other to control specific regiuns of the
• Should preferences be given to minority ethnicities to world.
correct past patterns of discrimination?
Ethnicity i~especially important to geographers because
in the face of globalization trends in culture and economy,
ethnicity stands as the strongest bulwark for the preserva-
tion of local diversity. Even if globalization engulfs lan-
guage, religion, and other cultural elements, regions of
distinct ethnic identity will remain.

1• KEY ISSUE discusses where ethnicities are distrib-

uted, particularly in the United States. Ethnicity is es-
pecially important to geographers because in the face of
globalization trends in culture and economy, ethnicity
stands as the strongest bulwark for the preservation of
local diversity.

• KEY ISSUE2 explains wfly ethnicities have distinctive

distributions. Spatial patterns derive from patterns of
migration an<.lin some cases discrimination.

• KEY ISSUE 3 looks at geographic factors underlying

conflicts among ethnicities. Conflicts result in many
places when more than one ethnic group fights to oc-
cupy the same space.

.6. FIGURE7-1 ETHNICDIVERSITYIN LONDONWhitechapeRl oadis • 4KEY ISSUE analyzes examples of conflicts among
a majorroadin EastLondonT. hestreethaslongbeena commerciaclenter
for immigrantsto the UnitedKingdomc,urrentlyprimarilyfromSouthAsia.In ethnicities that lead to large-scale forced migration and
the backgroundis centralLondonI,ncludingthe hlghrisebuildinghousingthe
insurancecompanySwissRe,whichis knowninformallyasthegherkin(British killings.
for pickle).

226

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 227

KEY ISSUE 1 race. A racist is a person who subscribes to the beliefs of
racism.
Where Are Ethnicities
President Barack Obama illustrates the complexity
Distributed? of designating race and ethnicity in the United States
(Figure 7-2):
■ Ethnicities in the United States • President Obama's father, Barack Obama, Senior, was

• Distribution of Ethnicities in the born in the village of Kanyadhiang, Kenya. He was a
United States member of Kenya's third-largest ethnic group, known
as the Luo.
Ethnicity is identity with a group of people who share the • President Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was born in
cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth. The Kansas. Most of her ancestors migrated to the United
word ethnicity comes from the Greek word ethnikos, which States from England in the nineteenth century.
means "national." Ethnicity is important to geographers • President Obama's step-father-his mother's second
because its characteristics derive from the distinctive fea- husband, Lolo Soetoro-was born in the village of
tures of particular places on Earth. Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He was a member of Indonesia's
largest ethnic group, known as the Javanese.
Ethnicity is often confused with race, which is iden- • The son of a white mother and a black father, President
tity with a group of people who share a biological ances- Obama chose to identify himself on the census as "Black,
tor. The word racecomes from a middle-French word for African American, or Negro."
"generation." The traits that characterize race are those
that can be transmitted genetica11y from parents to chil- • FIGURE7-2 ETHNIC DIVERSITY: BARACK OBAMA'S FAMILY (top left)
dren. For example, lactose intolerance affects 95 percent BarackObamawith hismother,(topright)with hisfather,and(bottom)with
of Asian Americans, 65 percent of African Americans and hisstepfatherm, other,andstepsister.
Native Americans, and 50 percent of Hispanics, compared
to only 15 percent of Americans of European ancestry.

Features of race, such as skin color, hair type and color,
blood traits, and shape of body, head, and facial features,
were once thought to be scientifically classifiable. Con-
temporary geographers reject the entire biological basis of
classifying humans into a handful of races because these
features are not rooted in specific places.

However, one feature of race does matter to geogra-
phers: the color of skin. The distribution of persons of
color matters to geographers because it ls the fundamen-
tal basis by which people in many societies sort out where
they reside, attend school, spend their leisure time, and
perform many other activities of daily life.

At best, biological features are so highly variable among
members of a race that any prejudged classification is
meaningless. Perhaps many tens or hundreds of thousands
of years ago, early "humans" (however they emerged as a
distinct species) lived in such isolation from other early
"humans" that they were truly distinct genetically. But the
degree of isolation needed to keep biological features dis-
tinct genetically vanished when the first human crossed a
river or climbed a hill.

At worst, biological classification by race is the basis
for racism, which is the belief that race is the primary de-
terminant of human traits and capacities and that racial
differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular

228 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Ethnicities in the United States Most Hispanics identify with a more specific ethnic or
national origin. Around two-thirds come from Mexico and
Learning Outcome 7.1.1 are sometimes called Chicanos (males) or Chicanas (fe-
males). Originally these terms were considered insulting,
Identify and describe the major ethnicities in the but in the 1960s Mexican American youths in Los Angeles
United States. began to call themselves Chicanos and Chicanas with pride.

The United States has always been defined, in part, by its In 2010 about 72 percent of Americans said on the
ethnic diversity. Today, Americans are more diverse than census that they were white, 13 percent black or African
ever before. Every 10 years, the U.S. Bureau of the Census American, 5 percent one of the seven Asian categories,
asks people to classify themselves according to the ethnic- 1 percent American Indian or Alaska Native, and 6 percent
ity with which they most closely identify. Americans are other. The census permits people to check more than
asked to identify themselves by answering two questions: one box, and 3 percent did that in 2010. Approximately
16 percent said they were Hispanic, and 84 percent said
• Check the box next to one or more of the following fif- they were not.
teen categories:
■ White The U.S. census shows the difficulty in distinguishing
■ Black, African American, or Negro between ethnicity and race. Most of the census categories
■ American Indian or Alaska Native relate to ethnicity because they derive from places, such
■ Asian Indian as African American or Asian Indian. However, the census
■ Chinese also offers three race-related categories-black, white, and
■ Filipino other race. The three most numerous U.S. ethnicities-
■ Other Asian Asian American, African American, and Hispa n icAmerican-
■ Japanese further illustrate the difficulty. These three display distinct
■ Korean cultural traditions that originate at particular hearths but
■ Vietnamese are regarded In different ways:
■ Native Hawaiian
■ Guamanian or Chamorro • Asian American· as an ethnicity and Asian a race refer
■ Samoan to the same group of people, which encompasses
■ Other Pacific Islander Americans from many countries in Asia (Figure 7-3).
■ Other race
• African American as an ethnicity and black as a race en-
• Respond yes or no to being of Hispanic, Latino, or Span- compass different groups, although the 2010 census
ish origin. If the response is yes, individuals are asked to combines the two. Most black Americans are descended
pick one of these categories: from African immigrants and therefore also belong to an
■ Mexican, Mexican i\m., Chicano [the census uses African American ethnicity (Figure 7-4). Some American
the abbreviation" Am."] blacks, however, trace their cultural heritage to regions
■ Puerto Rican other than Africa, including Latin America, Asia, and
■ Cuban Pacific islands. The term African American identifies a
■ Another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin group with an extensive cultural tradition, whereas the
term black in principle denotes nothing more than dark
Respondents who select American Indian, Other Asian, skin. Because many Americans make judgments about
Other Pacific Islander, Other race, or Another Hispanic are the values and behavior of others simply by observing
asked to write in the specific names on the census form.
l' FIGURE7-3 ASIAN AMERICANS Sanfrancisco'sChinatown.

Pause and Reflect 7.1.1
How would you answer the census questions about
yourself?

Hispanic and Hispanic American are terms that the U.S.
government chose in 1973 to describe the group because
they are inoffensive labels that can be applied to all people
from Spanish-speaking countries. Some Americans of Latin
American descent have instead adopted the terms Latino
(males) and Latina (females). A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau sur-
vey found that 58 percent of Americans of Latin American
descent preferred the term Hispanic and 12 percent
Latino/Latina.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 229

.& FIGURE7·4 AFRICAN AMERICANS NewYork'sHarlem.

skin color, black is substituted for African American in
daily language.

• Hispanicis an ethnicity but not a race, so Hispanics can
identify with any race they wish. Hispanics have an es-
pecially difficult time doing so on the census. In 2010,
53 pen;ent of Hispanics picked white, 37 percent other
race, 6 percent more than one box, and 4 percent one
of the 13 other categories (Figure 7-5).

Today, many Americans are of mixed ancestry and may
or may not choose to identify with a single race or eth-
nicity. Other Americans trace their heritage to places in
Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, that are not included in
the two race and ethnicity census questions.

ETHNIC CLUSTERING: STATE SCALE .& FIGURE7-5 HISPANICS Chicago'sPilsenneighborhood.

The distinctive distribution of African Americans and average. ln Texas, F,J Paso and San Antonio-the two large
Hispanics is especially noticeable at the state level. At the cities closest to the Mexican border-are more than one-
state level, African Americans comprise 85 percent of the
population in the city of Detroit and only 7 percent in half Hispanic, but the state's other large cities have per-
the rest of Michigan. Otherwise stated, Detroit contains centages below or about equal to the state's average of
less than one-tenth of Michigan's total population but around one-third.
more than one-half of the state's African American popula-
tion (Figure 7-6). Similarly, Chicago is more than one-third Lake , I dot=50 people ◄ FIGURE 7-6
African American, compared to one-twelfth in the rest of DISTRIBUTION OF
Illinois. Chicago has less than one-fourth of Illinois' total CANADA ETHNICITIES IN
population and more than one-half of the state's African MICHIGAN Most
Americans. of Michigan'sAfrican
Americanslivein
The distribution of Hispanics is similar to that of Detroit.
African Americans in large northern cities. For example,
New York City is more than one-fourth Hispanic, com- Mu,kego~ SagTnawa
pared to one-sixteenth in the rest of New York State, and
New YorkCity contains two-fifths of the state's total popu- N Granldl>!Pl~5' ,(,llnl
lation and three-fourths of its Hispanics. ILUNOIS
' - Lansingi!'
In the states with the largest Hispanic populations-
California and Texas-the distribution is mixed. In CaJifomia, INOIANA
Hispanics comprise nearly half of Los Angeles's popula-
tion, but the percentage of Hispanics in California's other
large cities is less than or about equal to the overall state

230 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Distribution of Ethnicities
in the United States

Learning Outcome 7.1.2
Describe the distribution of major U.S. ethnicities
among regions and within urban areas.

Within a country, clustering of ethnicities can occur on ...
two scales. Ethnic groups may live in particular regions of .:
the country, and they may live in particular communities
within cities and states. Within the United States, ethnici- .& FIGURE 7-7 DISTRIBUTION OF HISPANICS IN THE UNITED
ties are clustered at both scales.
STATES Thecountieswiththe highestpercentagesin2010 are Inthe
ETHNIC CLUSTERING: REGIONAL SCALE Southwestn. earthe Mexicanbordera, ndinnortherncities.

On a regional scale, ethnicities have distinctive distribu- Pe,..ntAlifcal
tions within the United States: Amertcan
-250andliloll
• Hispanics. Clustered in the Southwest, Hispanics exceed - 5.D-241
one-third of the population of Arizona, New Mexico,
and Texas and one-quarter of California (Figure 7-7). ~ION50
California is home to one-third of all Hispanics, Texas
one-fifth, and Florida and New Yorkone-sixth each. .:.,.:

• African Americans. Clustered in the Southeast, African .& FIGURE 7-8 DISTRIBUTION OF AFRICAN AMERICANSIN THE
Americans comprise at least one-fourth of the popu-
lation in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and UNITED STATESThecountieswiththehighestpercentagesofAfrican
South Carolina and more than one-third in Mississippi Americanasre inthe ruralSouthandinnortherncities.
(Figure 7-8). Concentrations are even higher in selected
counties. At the other extreme, nine states in upper
New England and the West have less than 1 percent Af-
rican Americans.

• AsianAmericans.Clustered in the West, Asian Americans
comprise more than 40 percent of the population of
Hawaii (Figure 7-9). One-half of all Asian Americans
live in California, where they comprise 12 percent of
the population.

ETHNIC CLUSTERING: URBAN SCALE PercenAt sian
/uneflcan
African Americans and Hispanics are highly clustered in -25.0ard•
urban areas. Around 90 percent of these ethnicities live in
metropolitan areas, compared to around 75 percent for all 5.0-249
Americans. The clustering of ethnicities is especially pro- 8ttow50
nounced on the scale of neighborhoods within cities. In
the early twentieth century, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, .& FIGURE 7·9 DISTRIBUTION OF ASIANAMERICANSIN THE UNITED
and other Midwest cities attracted ethnic groups primar-
ily from Southern and Eastern Europe to work in the rap- STATES Thecountieswiththe highestpercentagesofAsianAmericanasre in
idly growing steel, automotive, and related industries. Hawaiai nd California.
For example, in 1910, when Detroit's auto production
was expanding, three-fourths of the city's residents were The children and grandchildren of European immi-
immigrants and children of immigrants. Southern and grants moved out of most of the original inner-city neigh-
Eastern European ethnic groups clustered in newly con- borhoods during the twentieth century. For descendants
structed neighborhoods that were often named for their
predominant ethnicities, such as Detroit's Greektown and
Poletown.

of European immigrants, ethnic identity is more likely to Chapter 7: Ethnicities 231

be retained through religion, food, and other cultural tra- r

ditions than through location of residence. A visible rem-

nant of early twentieth-century European ethnic neigh-

borhoods is the clustering of restaurants in such areas as

Little Italy and Greektown.

Ethnic concentrations in U.S. cities increasingly consist

of African Americans who migrate from the South or im-

migrants from Latin America and Asia. ln cities such as De-

troit, African Americans now comprise the majority and live

in neighborhoods originally inhabited by European ethnic

i.O groups. Chicago has extensive African American neighbor-
hoods on the south and west sides of the city, but the city

also contains a mix of neighborhoods inhabited by Euro-

pean, Latin American, and Asian ethnicities (Figure 7-10).

In Los Angeles, which contains large percentages of

African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans, the A
major ethnic groups are clustered in different areas (Fig-
ure 7-11). African Americans are located in south-central N

LosAngeles and Hispanics i.n the east. Asian Americans are

located to the south and west, contiguous to the African PACIFIC
American and Hispanic areas. OCEAN

---, ~--,-"'--t-~ <lliln Alleast50 percent
:AfricaAn merican
•• 41G.illmtters
• AsianAmerican
lebolt • Hlspanlc/1.atinola)
l
White
Lake Nomajoritygroup
Michigan
.6.FIGURE7-11 DISTRIBUTIONOF ETHNICITIESIN LOS
ANGELESAccordingto the 2010CensusA,fricanAmericanswereclusteredto
the southof downtownLosAngelesandHispanicsto theeast.AsianAmerican
neighborhoodws ereconHguousto theAfricanAmericanandHispanicareas.

_0 __. CHECK-IN:nv tscuE1

Alr1caAnmerican Where Are Ethnicities Distributed?
• AsianAmerican
• Hispanlc/Latlno(aJ ✓ The most numerous ethnicities in the United
States are Hispanic, African American, and
WMe Asian American.
Nomajoritygroup
✓ The three most numerous U.S. ethnicities have
l. FIGURE7-10 DISTRIBUTIONOF ETHNICITIEISN CHICAGOAccordingto distinctive distributions at regional, state, and
the201DCensusA.fricanAmericanws ereclusteredonthesouthandwestsides, urban scales.
Hispanicosnthenorthwesat ndsouthwesstide,andwhitesonthenorthside.
Pause and Reflect 7.1.2
Where are the principal clusters of ethnic minorities
found in your community?

232 THECULTURALLANDSCAPE

KEY ISSUE slavery was replaced in Europe by a feudal system, in which
laborers working the land (known as serfs) were bound to
Why Do Ethnicities the land and not free to migrate elsewhere. Serfs had to
Have Distinctive turn over a portion of their crops to the lord and provide
Distributions? other services, as demanded by the lord.

■ International Migration of Ethnicities Although slavery was rare in Europe, Europeans were
■ Internal Migration of African responsible for diffusing the practice to the Western
Hemisphere. Europeans who owned large plantations in the
Americans Americas turned to African slaves as an abundant source of
■ Segregation by Ethnicity and Race labor that cost less than paying wages to other Europeans.

Learning Outcome 7.2.1 At the height of the slave trade between 1710 and
Describe the patterns of forced and voluntary 1810, at least 10 million Africans were uprooted from
migration of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, their homes and sent on European ships to the Western
and Asian Americans to the United States. Hemisphere for sale in the slave markets. During that
period, the British and Portuguese each shipped about
The clustering of ethnicities within the United States is 2 million slaves to the Western Hemisphere, with most
partly a function of the same process that helps geogra- of the British slaves going to Caribbean islands and the
phers to explain the distribution of other cultural fac- Portuguese slaves to Brazil.
tors, such as language and religion-namely migration. In
Chapter 3, migration was divided into international (vol- The forced migration began when people living along
untary or forced) and internal (interregional and intrare- the east and west coasts of Africa, taking advantage of
gional). The distribution of J\frican Americans, Hispanic their superior weapons, captured members of other groups
Americans, and Asian Americans demonstrates all of these living farther inland and sold the captives to Europeans.
migration patterns. Europeans in turn shipped the captured Africans to the
Americas, selling them as slaves either on consignment or
through auctions. The Spanish and Portuguese first par-
ticipated in the slave trade in the early sixteenth century,
and the British, Dutch, and French joined in during the
next century.

International Migration
of Ethnicities

Most African Americans are descended from Africans
forced to migrate to the Western Hemisphere as slaves dur-
ing the eighteenth century. Most Asian Americans and
Hispanics are descended from voluntary immigrants to the
United States during the late twentieth and early twenty-
first centuries, although some felt compelled for political
reasons to come to the United States.

FORCED MIGRATION FROM AFRICA .A FIGURE7-12 SLAVESHIPThisdrawingmadearound1845fora French
magazineshowsthe highdensityandpoorconditionsof Africanstransported
Slavery is a system whereby one person owns another to theWesternHemispherteo becomeslaves.
person as a piece of property and can force that slave to
work for the owner's benefit. The first Africans brought
to the American colonies as slaves arrived at Jamestown,
Virginia, on a Dutch ship in 1619 (Figure 7-12). During
the eighteenth century, the British shipped about 400,000
Africans to the 13 colonies that later formed the United
States. In 1808 the United States banned bringing in ad-
ditional Africans as slaves, but an estimated 250,000 were
illegally imported during the next half-century.

Slavery was widespread during the time of the Roman
Empire, about 2,000 years ago. During the Middle Ages,

,, ., .,.,. Chapter 7: Ethnicities 233
.,
NORTH bitterly debated whether to permit slavery in the new
Ar,tERICA cJ, states. The Civil War (1861-1865) was fought to prevent
11 pro-slavery Southern states from seceding from the
~~:a...""'T!Slj Union. In 1863, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln
issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves
"11;0 in the 11 Confederate states. The Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution, adopted 8 months after the South sur-
• 00MINCO "$t..,lll'ult rendered, outlawed slavery.

WM.DOS Cotee

fortJ

French 1,000 1,(10/l'IJ•• A VOLUNTARY MIGRATION FROM LATIN
•Spanish AMERICA AND ASIA
0 1.000l!,OOOl(~cts N
•Dutch Until the late twentieth century, quotas limited the number
of people who could immigrate to the United States from
;. FIGURE7-13 ORIGINANO DESTINATIONOF SLAVESMostslaves Latin America and Asia, as discussed in Chapter 3. After
weretransportedacrosstheAtlanticfromWestAfricato theAmericas. the immigration laws were changed during the 1960s and
1970s, the population of Hispanlcs and Asian Americans
Different European countries operated in various re- in the United States increased rapidly. Initially, most
gions of Africa, each sending slaves to different des- Hispanics and Asian Americans were recent immigrants
tinations in the Americas (Figure 7-13). At the height who came to the United States in search of work, but in
of the eighteenth-century slave demand, a number of the twenty-first century most Americans who identify
European countries adopted the triangular slave trade, an themselves as Hispanics or Asian Americans are children
efficient triangular trading pattern (Figure 7-14). or grandchildren of immigrants.

The large-scale forced migration of Africans caused The rapid growth of Hispanics in the United States be-
them unimaginable hardship, separating families and de- ginning in the 1970s was fueled primarily by immigration
stroying villages. Traders generally seized the stronger and from Mexico and Puerto Rico (Figure 7-15).
younger villagers, who could be sold as slaves for the high-
est price. The Africans were packed onto ships at extremely Chinese com.prise the largest share of Asian Americans,
high density, kept in chains, and provided with minimal followed by Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, and Vietnamese
food and sanitary facilities. Approximately one-fourth (Figure 7-16). Most Asian Americans are either immigrants
died crossing the Atlantic. who arrived in the late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries or their offspring.
In the 13 colonies that later formed the United States
most of the large plantations in need of labor were located Hispanicsby countryof origin ◄ FIGURE7-15 HISPANICS
in the South, primarily those growing cotton as well as BY COUNTRY OF
tobacco. Consequently, nearly all Africans shipped to the ORIGIN Mexicanscomprise
13 colonies ended up in the Southeast. nearlytwo-thirdsof Hispanics
in the UnitedStates,
Attitudes toward slavery dominated U.S. politics dur-
ing the nineteenth century. During the early 1800s, when Central
new states were carved out of western territory, anti-slav-
ery northeastern states and pro-slavery southeastern states America
7.9%
► FIGURE7-14 TRIANGULAR
SLAVETRADE AsianAmericansby countryot origin ◄ FIGURE7-16 ASIANAMERICANS
• Shipsleft Europefor Africawith BY COUNTRYOFORIGINChinese,
Japan Filipinosa, nd Indianscompriseone-fifth
clothandothertradegoods,used 75% eachof AsianAmericansin the United
to buythe slaves. Korea.,,_ States.
• Theythentransportedslavesand 9.8%
gold from Africa to the Western
Hemisphere,primarily to the
Caribbeanislands.
• To complete the triangle, the
same ships then carried sugar
andmolassefsromthe Caribbean
on theirreturntrip to Europe,
• Someshipsaddedanotherstep, makinga rectangulartrading pattern,in
whichmolassews ascarriedfromthe Caribbeanto the NorthAmericancolo-
niesandrumfromthecoloniesto Europe.

234 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Internal Migration of African West Northeast
Americans Central
e.r~East
Learning Outcome 7.2.2
Describe the patterns of migration of African Ce)"ltral NewYor~
Americans within the United States.
West

African Americans have displayed two distinctive inter- .6.FIGURE 7-18 INTERREGIONAL MIGRATION OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
nal migration patterns within the United States during the
twentieth century: Migrationfollowedfourdistinctivechannelsalongthe EastCoast,east central,
westcentral,andsouthwestregionsofthe country.
• Interregional migration from the U.S. South to north-
ern cities during the first half of the twentieth century. twentieth century and have since been replaced by inter-
state highways:
• Intraregional migration from inner-city ghettos to
outer city and inner suburban neighborhoods during • East Coast. From the Carolinas and other South Allan-
the second half of the twentieth century. tic states north to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York,
and other northeastern cities, along U.S. Route 1 (paral-
INTERREGIONAL MIGRATION lel to present-day 1-95).

At the close of the Civil War, most African Americans • East central. From Alabama and eastern Tennessee north
to either Detroit, along U.S. Route 25 (present-day 1-75),
were concentrated in the rural South. Today, as a result or Cleveland, along U.S. Route 21 (present-day 1-77).

of interregional migration, many African Americans live • West central. From Mississippi and western Tennessee
north to St. Louis and Chicago, along U.S. routes 61
in cities throughout the ::--lortheast,Midwest, and West as and 66 (present-day l-55).

well. Freed as slaves, most African Americans remained in • Southwest. From Texas west to California, along U.S.
routes 80 and 90 (present-day 1-10and 1-20).
the rural South during the late nineteenth century, work-
Southern African Americans migrated north and west
ing as sharecroppers (Figure 7-17). A sharecropper works in two main waves, the first in the 1910s and 1920s before
and after World War I and the second in the 1940s and
fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent by turn- 1950s before and after World War II. The world wan stimu-
lated expansion of factories in the 1910s and 1940s to pro-
ing over to the landowner a share of the crops. To obtain duce war materiel, while the demands of the armed forces
created shortages of factory workers. After the wars, during
seed, tools, food, and living quarters, a sharecropper gets a the 1920s and 1950s, factories produced steel, motor vehi-
cles, and other goods demanded in civilian society.
line of credit from the landowner and repays the debt with
INTRAREGIONAL MIGRATION
yet more crops. The sharecropper system burdened poor
Intraregional migration-migration within cities and met-
African Americans with high interest rates and heavy ropolitan areas-also changed the distribution of African
Americans and people of other ethnicities. When they
debts. Instead of growing food that they could eat, share- reached the big cities, African American immigrants clus-
tered in the one or two neighborhoods where the small
croppers were forced by landowners to plant extensive numbers who had arrived in the nineteenth century were
already living. These areas became known as ghettos, after
areas of crops such as cotton that could be sold for cash. the term for neighborhoods in which Jews were forced to
live in the Middle Ages (see Chapter 6).
Sharecropping became less common into the twenti-
EXPANSION OF THE GHETTO. African Americans
eth century, as the introduction of farm machinery and moved from the tight ghettos into immediately adjacent
neighborhoods during the 1950s and 1960s. Expansion of
a decline in land devoted

to cotton reduced demand

for labor. At the same time

sharecroppers were being

pushed off the farms, they

were being pulled by the

prospect of jobs in the

booming industrial cities of

the North.

African Americans mi-

grated out of the South

along several clearly defined

channels (Figure 7-18). Most

traveled by bus and car

along the major two-lane

long-distance U.S. roads that

Thirteen-year-oAldfricanAmerican were paved and signposted

sharecroppepr lowing.1937. in the early decades of the

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 235

the ghetto typically followed major avenues that radiated Year
out from the center of the city.
A FIGURE 7-20 ETHNIC POPULATION CHANGE IN DETROIT
In Baltimore, for example, most of the city's quarter- Between1950and2010,thewhitepopulationof Detroitdeclinedfrom1.7million
rn.illion African Americans in 1950 were clustered in a to 100,000today,whereasthe AfricanAmericanpopulationincreasedfrom
3-square-kilometer (I-square-mile) neighborhood north- 300,000to 600,000.
west of downtown (Figure 7-19). The remainder were
clustered east of downtown or in a large isolated housing 5-square-kilometer (2-square-mile) area on the east side be-
project on the south side built for black wartime work- came mainly populated by African Americans. Expansion
ers in port industries. Densities in the ghettos were high, of the ghetto continued to follow major avenues to the
with 40,000 inhabitants per square kilometer (100,000 northwest and northeast in subsequent decades.
per square mile) common. Contrast that density with the
t1.ment level found in typical American suburbs of 2,000
inhabitants per square kilometer (5,000 per square mile).
Because of the shortage of housing in the ghettos, families
were forced to live in one room. Many dwellings lacked
bathrooms, kitchens, hot water, and heat.

Baltimore's west side African American ghetto ex-
panded from 3 square kilometers (1 square mile) in 1950
to 25 square kilometers (10 square miles) in 1970, and a

Percent Baltimore "WHITE FLIGHT." The expansion of the black ghettos in
AfricanAmerican County American cities was made possible by "white flight," the
emigration of whites from an area in anticipation of blacks
• 90 andabove immigrating into the area. Rather than integrate, whites fled.
60-89
30-59 Detroit provides a clear example. African Americans
10-29 poured into Detroit in the early twentieth century.
Below10 Many found jobs in the rapidly growing auto industry
(Figure 7-20). Immigration into Detroit from the South sub-
Fewornone sided during the 1950s, but as legal barriers to integration
crumbled, whites began to emigrate out of Detroit. Detroit's
Parklands white population dropped by about 1 million between 1950
and 1975 and by another half million between 1975 and
1940 Howard 2000. As a result, the overall population of Detroit declined
County from a historic peak of nearly 2 million in 1950 to around
700,000 in the early twenty-first century.
1970 ..
White flight was encouraged by unscrupulous real es-
• tate practices, especially blockbusting. Under blockbust-
ing, real estate agents convinced white homeowners living
2000 near a black area to sell their houses at low prices, preying
on their fears that black families would soon move into
the neighborhood and cause property values to decline.
The agents then sold the houses at much higher prices to
black families desperate to escape the overcrowded ghet-
tos. Through blockbusting, a neighborhood could change
from all-white to all-black in a matter of months, and real
estate agents could start the process all over again in the
next white area.

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,
known as the Kerner Commission, wrote in 1968 that U.S.
cities were divided into two separate and unequal societ-
ies, one black and one white. A half-century later, despite
serious efforts to integrate and equalize the two, segrega-
tion and inequality persist.

A FIGURE 7-19 EXPANSION OF THE GHETTO IN BALTIMORE Pause and Reflect 7.2.2
In 1950,mostAfricanAmericansin Baltimorelivedin a smallareanorthwestof
downtown.Duringthe 1950sand 1960s,the AfricanAmericanareaexpanded Referring to Figure 7-20, which figure is higher in
to the northwest,alongmajorradialroads,and a secondnodeopenedon the Detroit since 1950: the increasing number of African
eastside.Thesouth-sideAfricanAmericanareawasan isolatedpublichousing Americans or the decreasing number of whites?
complexbuilt forwartimeworkersin thenearbyport industries.

236 THECULTURALLANDSCAPE

Segregation by Ethnicity establishments served only blacks, and all of the schools
and Race had teachers and classrooms.

Learning Outcome 7.2.3 Throughout the country, not just in the South, house
Explain the laws once used to segregate races in the deeds contained restrictive covenants that prevented the
United States and South Africa. owners from selling to blacks, as well as to Roman Cath-
olics or Jews in some places. Restrictive covenants kept
In explaining spatial regularities, geographers look for pat- blacks from moving into an all-white neighborhood. And
terns of spatial interaction. A distinctive feature of ethnic because schools, especially at the elementary level, were
relations in the United States and South Africa has been located to serve individual neighborhoods, most were seg-
the strong discouragement of spatial interaction-in the regated in practice, even if not by legal mandate.
past through legal means and today through cultural pref-
erences or discrimination. U.S. segregation laws were eliminated during the
1950s and 1960s. The landmark Supreme Court decision
UNITED STATES:"SEPARATEBUT EQUAL" Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1954,
found that having separate schools for blacks and whites
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 upheld a Louisiana law was unconstitutional because no matter how equivalent
that required black and white passengers to ride in sepa- the facilities, racial separation branded minority children
rate railway cars. In Plessyv. Ferguson,the Supreme Court as inferior and therefore was inherently unequal. A year
stated that Louisiana's law was constitutional because later, the Supreme Court further ruled that schools had to
it provided separate, but equal, treatment of blacks and be desegregated "with all deliberate speed."
whites, and equality did not mean that whites had to mix
socially with blacks. CULTURAL SEGREGATION. Two major museums stan-
ding one block apart in Detroit illustrate the challenges of
SEGREGATIONLAWS. Once the Supreme Court permitted integrating ethnicities in the United States. The financially
"separate but equal" treatment of the races, southern states strapped city of Detroit has had difficulty adequately
enacted a comprehensive set of laws to segregate blacks funding both museums:
from whites as much as possible (Figure 7-21). These were
called "Jim Crow" laws, named for a nineteenth-century • The Detroit Institute of Arts contains a major collec-
song-and-dance act that depicted blacks offensively. Blacks tion of paintings by medieval European artists, many
had to sit in the backs of buses, and shops, restaurants, of which were donated a century ago by rich Detroit
and hotels could choose to serve only whites. Separate industrialists. The 80-year-old building, the country's
schools were established for blacks and whites. This was fifth-largest art museum, looks like a Greek temple.
equal, after all, white southerners argued, because the
bus got blacks sitting in the rear to the destination at the • The Museum of African American History, founded in
same time as the whites in the front, some commercial 1965, houses the country's largest exhibit devoted to
the history and culture of African Americans. The cur-
rent building, opened in 1997, is designed to reflect

the cultural heritage of Africa, including an entry with

large bronze doors topped by 14-karat gold-plated dec-
orative masks. The exhibits are primarily photographs,
videos, and text.

Y FIGURE7-21 SEGREGATIONIN THEUNITEDSTATESUntitlhe 1960s Pause and Reflect 7.2.3
Which Detroit museum should take priority for the
in the U.SS. outh,whitesandblackshadto useseparatedrinkingfountainsa, s city's limited investment funds-the Detroit Institute
of Arts or the Museum of African American History?
well asseparaterestroomsb.usseatsh, otelroomsa. ndotherpublicfacilities.
SOUTH AFRICA: APARTHEID
WHITE
Discrimination by race reached its peak in the late
twentieth century in South Africa. While the United States
was repealing laws that segregated people by race, South
Africa was enacting them. The cornerstone of the South
African policy was the creation of a legal system called
apartheid (Figure 7-22). Apartheid was the physical sep-
aration of different races into different geographic areas.
Although South Africa's apartheid laws were repealed dur-
ing the 1990s, it will take many years to erase the impact
of those policies.

Homelands Chapter 7: Ethnicities 237
•c,eated
• Proposed 130TSWANA

NAMIBIA

-~<JO'S NorthernCape JO'S
,f,
\

"t--?ATLANTfC
A FIGURE7-22 APARTHEIDINSOUTHAFRICA SouthAfrica'sapartheid .
lawsweredesignedto spatiallysegregateracesas muchas possibleT. his1984 Eastemfape
imageofCityHallinJohannesburgshowsthat whitesandnonwhiteswere
requiredto useseparatebathrooms. OCEAN ' \..

In South Africa, under apartheid, a newborn baby was Western Cape IND/AN OCEAN
classified as being one of four races-black, white, colored caperowq•
(mixed white and black), or Asian. Under apartheid, each
of the four races had a different legal status in South Africa. Present-dapyrovinceasreshown 2s·e 30'l
The apartheid laws determined where different races could
Jive, attend school, work, shop, and own land. Blacks were A FIGURE7-23 SOUTHAFRICA'SAPARTHEIDHOMELANDS Aspartof
restricted to certain occupations and were paid far lower itsapartheidsystem,the governmenot f SouthAfricadesignated10homelands,
wages than were whites for similar work. Blacks could not expectingthat ultimatelyeveryblackwouldbecomea citizenofoneofthem.
vote or run for political office in national elections. The SouthAfricadeclared4 ofthesehomelandsto be independensttates.butno
apartheid system was created by descendants of whites othercountryrecognizedthe action.Withtheendofapartheidandthe election
who arrived in South Africa from the Netherlands in 1652 ofa blackmajoritygovernment,he homelandswereabolisheda, ndSouth
and settled in Cape Town, at the southern tip of the ter- Africawasreorganizedinto9 provinces.
ritory. They were known either as Boers, from the Dutch
word for "farmer," or Afrikaners, from the word "Afri- from jail after more than 27 years of imprisonment. When
kaans," the name of their language, which is a dialect of all South Africans were permitted to vote in national elec-
Dutch. tions for the first time, in 1994, Mandela was overwhelm-
ingly elected the country's first black president.
The British seized the Dutch colony in 1795 and con-
trolled South Africa's government until 1948, when the Now that South Africa's apartheid laws have been dis-
Afrikaner-dominated Nationalist Party won elections. The mantled and the country is governed by its black majority,
Afrikaners gained power at a time when colonial rule was other countries have reestablished economic and cultural
being replaced in the rest of Africa by a collection of in- ties. However, the legacy of apartheid will linger for many
dependent states run by the local black population. The years: South Africa's blacks have achieved political equal-
Afrikaners vowed to resist pressures to turn over South ity, but they are much poorer than white South Africans.
Africa's government to blacks, and the Nationalist Party Average income among white South Africans is about
created the apartheid laws in the next few years to per- 10 times higher than that of blacks.
petuate white dominance of the country. To ensure geo-
graphic isolation of different races, the South African CHECK-IN:KEY ISSUE2
government designated 10 so-called homelands for blacks
(Figure 7-23). The white minority government expected Why Do Ethnicities Have Distinctive
every black to become a citizen of one of the homelands and Distributions?
to move there. More than 99 percent of the population in the
10 homelands was black. ✓ Ancestors of African Americans immigrated to
the United States primarily as slaves.
The white-dominated government of South Africa
repealed the apartheid laws in 1991. The principal anti- ✓ Large numbers of African Americans migrated
apartheid organization, the African National Congress, from the South to the North and West during
was legalized, and its leader, Nelson Mandela, was released
the early twentieth century.

✓ In the United States, as well as in South Africa,
segregation of races was legal for much of the
twentieth century.

238 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

KEY ISSUE3

Why Do Conflicts Arise
among Ethnicities?

■ Ethnicities and Nationalities
■ Ethnic Competition
■ Dividing Ethnicities

Learning Outcome 7.3.1
Explain the difference between ethnicity and
nationality.

Ethnicity and race are distinct from nationality, another A FIGURE 7-24 QUEBECINDEPENDENCERALLYSupporterosf
term commonly used to describe a group of people with independencfeorQuebecmarchthroughthestreetsof Montreapl riorto a
shared traits. Nationality is identity with a group of peo- 1995referendumin whichvotersvoted50.6percento 49.4percento remain
ple who share legal attachment and personal allegiance to partof Canada.
a particular country. It comes from the Latin word nasci,
which means "to have been born." In Canada, tbe Quebecois are clearly distinct from other
Canadians in language, religion, and other cultural tradi-
Ethnicities and Nationalities tions. But do the Quebecois form a distinct ethnicity within
the Canadian nationality or a second nationality separate
Nationality and ethnicity are similar concepts in that altogether from Anglo-Canadian? The distinction is critical
membership in both is defined through shared cultural because if Quebecois is recognized as a separate national-
values. In principle, the cultural values shared with others ity from Anglo-Canadian, tbe Quebec government would
of the same ethnicity derive from religion, language, and have a much stronger justification for breaking away from
material culture, whereas those shared with others of the Canada to form an independent country (Figure 7-24).
same nationality derive from voting, obtaining a passport,
and performing civic duties. ETHNICITIES AND NATIONALITIES
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
NATIONALITIES IN NORTH AMERICA
Outside North America, ► FIGURE 7-25 ETHNICITIESAND
In the United States, nationality is generally kept reason- distinctions between eth- NATIONALITIESIN THE UNITED
ably distinct from ethnicity and race in common usage: nicity and nationality KINGDOM AND IRELAND
are even muddier. An ex- TheBritishIslescomprisetwo countries:
• Nationality identifies citizens of the United States of ample of the complexity the Republicof Irelandandthe United
America, including those born in the country and those is the British Isles, which Kingdomof GreatBritainandNorthern
who immigrated and became citizens. comprise several thousand Ireland
islands, including Ireland
• Ethnicity identifies groups wit_hdistinct ancestry and (called Eire in Irish) and
cultural traditions, such as African Americans, Hispanic Great Britain. The British
Americans, Chinese Americans, or Polish Americans. Isles contain four prin-
cipal ethnicities (Figure
• Race distinguishes blacks and other persons of color 7-25):
from whites.
• English. The English
The United States forged a nationality in the late eigh- are descendants of
teenth century out of a collection of ethnic groups gath- Germanic tribes who
ered primarily from Europe and Africa, not through tra-
ditional means of issuing passports (African Americans crossed the North Sea
weren't considered citizens then) or voting (women and and invaded the coun-
African Americans couldn't vote then), but through shar- try in the fifth century
ing the values expressed in the Declaration of Indepen- (see Chapter S).
dence and the U.S. Constitution. To be an American meant
believing in the "unalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness."

• Welsh. The Welsh were Celtic people conquered by Ji. FIGURE7-26 NATIONALISM Ukrainianscelebrateindependencdeay
England in 1282 and formally united with England onAugust24 bywavingflagswhile walkingalongKhreshchatySktreetin the
through the Act of Union of 1536. Welsh laws were capital,Kiev.Ukrainedeclaredits independencferom the formerSovietUnion
abolished, and Wales became a local government unit. on A'ugust24, 1991.

• Scots. The Scots were Celtic people who had an inde- is loyalty and devotion to a nationality. Nationalism typ-
pendent country for more than 700 years, until 1603, ically promotes a sense of national consciousness that
when Scotland's King James VI also became KingJames exalts one nation above all others and emphasizes its cul-
I of England, thereby uniting the two countries. The ture and interests as opposed to those of other nations.
Act of Union in 1707 formally merged the two govern- People display nationalism by supporting a country that
ments, although Scotland was allowed to retain its own preserves and enhances the culture and attitudes of their
systems of education and local laws. nationality.

• Irish. The Irish were Celtic people who were ruled by States foster nationalism by promoting symbols of
England until the twentieth century, when most of the the country, such as flags and songs. The symbol of the
island became the independent country of Ireland. hammer and sickle on a field of red was long synony-
mous with the beliefs of communism. After the fall of
Ireland and Great Britain are diVided into two communism, one of the first acts in a number of East-
nationalities: ern European countries was to redesign flags without the
hammer and sickle. Legal holidays were changed from
• The United Kingdom comprises Great Britain and North- dates associated with Communist victories to those asso-
ern Ireland. The term British refers to the nationality. ciated with historical events that preceded Communist
takeovers.
• The Republic of Ireland comprises the southern 84 per-
cent of the island of Ireland. The island of lreland con- Nationalism can have a negative impact. The sense of
tains one predominant ethnicity-Irish-divided be- unity within a nation-state is sometimes achieved through
tween two nationalities. the creation of negative images of other nation-states.
Travelers in southeastern Europe during the 1970s and
Within the United Kingdom, a strong element of eth- 1980s found that jokes directed by one nationality against
nic identity comes from sports. Even though they are not another recurred in the same form throughout the region,
separate countries, England, Scotland, Wales, and North- with only the name of the target changed. For example,
ern Ireland field their own national soccer and compete "How many [fill in the name of a nationality] are needed
separately in major international tournaments, such as the to change a lightbulb?" Such jokes seemed harmless, but
World Cup. The most important annual rugby tournament, in hindsight reflected the intense dislike for other nation-
known as the Six Nations' Championship, includes teams alities that led to conflict in the 1990s.
from England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as Ireland,
Italy, and France. Given the history of English conquest, Nationalism is an important example of a centripe-
the other nationalities often root against England when it tal force, which is an attitude that tends to unify peo-
is playing teams from other countries. ple and enhance support for a state. (The word centripetal
means "directed toward the center"; it is the opposite of
Sorting out ethnicity and nationality can be challenging centrifugal,which means "to spread out from the center.")
for many, including prominent sports stars. The golfer Rory Most countries find that the best way to achieve citizen
Mcllroy's ethnicity is Irish Catholic, and his nationality is support is to emphasize shared attitudes that unify the
United Kingdom, because Northern Ireland is part of the -people.
United Kingdom. But many Catholics in Northern Ireland
feel closeness to the Republic of Ireland (see Chapter 6).

Tiger Woods has the reverse situation. His nationality is
clearly the United States, but his ethnicity is less clear. His
father was a mix of African American, Native American,
and possibly Chinese, and his mother was a mix of Thai,
Chinese, and Dutch. Woods describes his complex ethnic-
ity as "Cablinasian."

Pause and Reflect 7.3.1

If Scotland becomes an independent country, how
would the arrangement of nationalities in the British
Isles change?

NATIONALISM

A nationality, once established, must hold the loyalty of
its citizens to survive (Figure 7-26). Politicians and govern-
ments try to instill loyalty through nationalism, which

240 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

of Antioch, perform the liturgy in the ancient Syrian lan:-

Ethnic Competition guage. The second-largest Christian sect is Greek Ortho-
dox, the Orthodox church that uses a Byzantine liturgy.

• Muslims. Most of Lebanon's Muslims belong to one of

Learning Outcome 7.3.2 several Shiite sects. Sunnis, who are much more numer-
Identify and describe the principal ethnicities in ous than Shiites in the world, account for a minority of
Lebanon and Sri Lanka.
Lebanon's Muslims. Lebanon also has an important com-
munity of Druze, who were once considered to have a

We have already seen in this chapter that identification separate religion but now consider themselves Muslim.
with ethnicity and race can lead to discrimination and Many Druze rituals are kept secret from outsiders.

segregation. Confusion between ethnicity and nationality Lebanon's diversity may appear to be religious rather

can lead to violent conflicts. Lebanon and Sri Lanka are ex- than ethnic. But most of Lebanon's Christians consider

amples of coi.:mtries that have not successfully integrated themselves ethnically descended from the ancient Phoe-
diverse ethnicities. nicians who once occupied present-day Lebanon. ln this
way, Lebanon's Christians differentiate thems@lves from

ETHNIC COMPETITION IN LEBANON the country's Muslims, who are considered Arabs.
When Lebanon became independent in 1943, the con-
Lebanon has 4 million people in an area of 10,000 square
kilometers (4,000 square miles), a bit smaller and more popu- stitution required that each religion be represented in the
lous than Connecticut. Once known as a financial and recre- Chamber of Deputies according to its percentage in the
ational center in the Middle East, Lebanon has been severely 1932 census. By unwritten convention, the president of
Lebanon was a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni

damaged by fighting among ethnicities since the 1970s. Muslim, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shiite

Lebanon is divided between around 60 percent Muslims Muslim, and the foreign minister a Greek Orthodox Chris-

and 40 percent Christians (Figure 7-27). The precise dis- tian. Other cabinet members and civil servants were simi-

tribution of religions in Lebanon is unknown because no larly apportioned among the various faiths.
census has been taken since 1932: Lebanon's religious groups have tended to Jive in differ-

• Christians. Lebanon's most numerous Christian sect is ent regions of the country. Maronites are concentrated in
Maronite, which split from the Roman Catholic Church
in the seventh century. Maronites, ruled by the patriarch the west-central part, Sunnis in the northwest, and Shiites
in the south and east. Beirut, the capital and largest city,
has been divided between a Christian eastern zone and a
Muslim western zone. During a civil war between 1975

35'E and 1990, each religious group formed a private army or
militia to guard its territory. The territory controlled by
each militia changed according to results of battles with

other religious groups.
When the governmental system was created, Christians

Mediterranean ( LEBANON constituted a majority and controlled the country's main
Sea businesses, but as Muslims became the majority, they de-
manded political and economic equality. The agreement

ending the civil war in 1990 gave each religion one-half

of the 128 seats in Parliament. Israel and the United States

Beirut sent troops into Lebanon at various points in failed efforts
to restore peace (Figure 7-28). The United States pulled out

SYRIA after 241 U.S. marines died in their barracks from a truck
bomb in 1983. Lebanon was left under the control of neigh-

boring Syria, which had a historical claim over the territory

• Damascus until it, too, was forced to withdraw its troops in 2005.

'~ ~Maes
1
10 Uotnett:rs
io0~ Pause and Reflect 7.3.2
What country borders Lebanon on the south?
?I.,. Christians What conflict has been ongoing in that country, as
Sunnis
GOlANt~ described in Chapter6?

EIGHTS\ Shiites ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN SRI LANKA

(OCCUj)i\ed Druze An island country of 19 million inhabitants off the lndia1
coast, Sri Lanka is inhabited by three principal ethnicitie
ISRAEL 6yIsrael \
Ince19!>7)/
'35"E

& FIGURE 7-27 ETHNICITIESIN LEBANON Christiandsominateinthe

southandthe northwestS, unniMuslimisnthe farnorth,ShiiteMuslimisnthe

northeastandsouth,andDruzeinthe south-centraalndsoutheast.

INDJA Chapter 7: Ethnicities 241

Gulf of 81'E
Msnnor At least 40 percent
Sinhalese

Tamil
•Moor

Bay of Bengal

I 8'11

ll'N

Laccadlve
Sea

7'N

J,. FIGURE 7-28 ETHNIC CONFLICT IN LEBANON U.SM. arinespatrolthe
streetsof Beirut,Lebanoni,n 1983.

2> 50Mi1n- IND/AN

Q is 5(1K-k>rntlers OCEAN

known as Sinhalese, Tamil, and Moors (Figure 7-29). War 46'11 -6'N
between the Sinhalese and Tamil erupted in 1983 and con- 79"E 62'£

tinued until 2009. During that period, 80,000 died in the .._FIGURE 7-29 ETHNICITIES IN SRI LANKA

conflict between the two ethnicities: TheSinhaleseare Buddhistswho speakan lndo-Europeanlanguagew, hereas

• Sinhalese, who comprise 74 percent of Sri Lanka's theTamilsareHinduswho speaka Dravidianlanguage.

population, migrated from northern India in the fifth

century n.c., occupying the southern two-thirds of the

island. Three hundred years later, the Sinhalese were con-

verted to Buddhism, and Sri Lanka became one of that multinational state is jeopardized. Back in 1956, Sinhalese

religion's world centers. Sinhalese is an lndo-European leaders made Buddhism the sole official religion and

language, in the Indo-Iranian branch. Sinhala the sole official language of Sri Lanka. The Tamils

• Tamils, who comprise 16 percent of Sri Lanka's popu- fear that their military defeat jeopardizes their ethnic iden-
lation, migrated across the narrow 80-kilometer-wide tity again.

(SO-mile-wide) Palk Strait from India beginning in the

third century n.c. and occupied the northern part of

the island. Tamils are Hindus, and the Tamil lan- T FIGURE 7-30 ETHNIC CONFLICT IN SRI LANKA Tamilsdemonstratingin Switzerlandfor
guage, in the Dravidian family, is also spoken by 60 internationasl upporta fewdaysbeforelosingthewarin 2009.

million people in India.

• Moors, who comprise 10 percent of Sri Lanka's
population, are ethnic Arabs, descended from trad-
ers from Southwest Asia who settled in Sri Lanka
beginning in the eighth century A.D. Moors adhere
to Islam but speak either Tamil or Sanhalese.

The dispute between Sri Lanka's two largest ethnicities
extends back more than 2,000 years but was suppressed
during 300 years of European control. Since the country
gained independence in 1948, Sinhalese have dominated
the government, military, and most of the commerce.
Tamils feel that they suffer from discrimination at the
hands of the Sinhalese-dominated government and
have received support for a rebellion that began in 1983
from Tamils living in other countries.

The long war between the ethnicities ended in 2009,
with the defeat of the Tamils (Figure 7-30). With their
defeat, the Tamils fear that the future of Sri Lanka as a

242 THECULTURALANDSCAPE

....,....:..-------------------------'----- Pakistan were predominantly Muslim; those in India we

Dividing Ethnicities predominantly Hindu. Antagonism between the two re
gious groups was so great that the British decided to pla

the Hindus and Muslims in separate states. Hinduis

Learning Outcome 7.3.3 has become a great source of national unity in India.

Describe how the Kurds, as well as several ethnicities modern India, with its hundreds of languages and ethr;

in South Asia, have been divided among more than groups, Hinduism has become the cultural trait shared

one nationality. the largest percentage of the population.

Muslims have long fought with Hindus for control

Few ethnicities inhabit an area that matches the territory territory, especially in South Asia. After the British to•

of a nationality. Ethnicities are sometimes divided among over India in the early 1800s, a three-way struggle bega

more than one nationality. with the Hindus and Muslims fighting each other as w,

as the British rulers. Mahatma Gandhi, the leading Hinl

DIVIDING SOUTH ASIAN ETHNICITIES advocate of nonviolence and reconciliation with Musliq
AMONG NATIONALITIES
was assassinatedin 1948, ending the possibility of creati1

a single state in which Muslims and Hindus could live t

South Asiaprovides vivid examples of what happens when gether peacefully.
independence comes to colonies that contain two major The partition of South Asia into two states resulted
ethnicities. When the British ended their colonial rule of
the Indian subcontinent in 1947, they divided the colony massive migration because the two boundaries did not cc
into two irregularly shaped countries-India and Pakistan respond precisely to the territory inhabited by the two et
(Figure 7-31). Pakistan comprised two noncontiguous nicities. Approximately 17 million people caught on t
areas, West Pakistan and E.ast Pakistan, 1,600 kilometers wrong side of a boundary felt compelled to migrate d1
(1,000 miles) apart, separated by India. East Pakistan be- ing the late 1940s. Some 6 million Muslims moved frc
came the independent state of Bangladesh in 1971. An India to West Pakistan and about 1 million from India
eastern region of India was also practically cut off from East Pakistan. Hindus who migrated to India included a
the rest of the country, attached only by a narrow corri- proximately 6 million from West Pakistan and 3.5 milli1
dor north of Bangladesh that is less than 13 kilometers from East Pakistan. As they attempted to reach the ott
(8 miles) wide in some places. side of the new border, Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims
India were killed by people from the rival religion. Extre1
The basis for separating West and East Pakistan from ists attacked small groups of refugees traveling by road a,
India was ethnicity. The people living in the two areas of halted trains to massacre the passengers.

Pakistan and India never agreed on the location

the boundary separating the two countries in the northe

FlowIn millions region of Kashmir (Figure

Primarily Plimarily 7-32). Since 1972, the two CHINA
Muslims Hindus countries have maintained
a "line of control" through
0.5- 0.5-

s.o♦ s.o ♦

the region, with Pakistan ~t,

;;<
administering the north- 'Jr

western portion and India

the southeastern portion. P '1sr

1,2 Muslims, who comprise a

r;rJ~!/.!-.~ majority in both portions, I
have fought a guerrilla war Islam
l!O'N i.t.mt>ai): -~ Ff]xor to secure reunification of
Gu
Arab/an Sea u,------,JrHydtrabad• Kashmir, either as part of _.....,.,
Pakistan or as an indepen-
fO'N ..j.. dent country. India blames .._,,J ',
Pakistan for the unrest and
~50 SOC""'" vows to retain its portion '' INOIA
O 250 500Ki~elers
~Ml
r o 2ssoKclom1

10"N of Kashmir. Pakistan argues - Internationabloundary
--·- IndiaproYlncbeoundary
\. that Kashmiris on both - Lineofcontrobl etweeInndia

IIO"E sides of the border should andPakislan

A FIGURE7-31 ETHNICDIVISIONOFSOUTHASIA In 1947,BritishIndia choose their own future Road
waspartitionedintotwo independensttatesI,ndiaandPakistanw, hichresulted in a vote, confident that
in the migrationof anestimated17millionpeopleT. hecreationof Pakistanas the majority Muslim pop- 11 Moumaipnass

A FIGURE7-32 KASHMIR India,

two territoriesnearly1,600kilometers{1,000miles)apartprovedunstablea,nd ulation would break away Pakistadnisputethelocationof thei

in 1971EastPakistabnecametheindependenctountryof Bangladesh. from India. border.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 243

◄ FIGURE7-33 KURDS Kurdsin northernIraqhold
burningtorchesto celebratetheir newyear,whichthey
call Newroz,on the first dayof spring.

India's religious unrest is further complicated by the and the rest in other countries. Kurds comprise 19 percent
presence of 25 million Sikhs, who have long resented that of the population in Turkey, 16 percent in Iraq, 9 percent
they were not given their own independent country when in Syria, and 6 percent in Iran (refer ahead to Figure 7-34
India was partitioned (see Chapter 6). Although they con- on the next page).
stitute only 2 percent of India's total population, Sikhs
comprise a majority in the Indian state of Punjab, situated To foster the development of Turkish nationalism, the
south of l<ashmir along the border with Pakistan. Sikh ex- Turks have tried repeatedly to suppress Kurdish culture.
tremists have fought for more control over the Punjab or Use of the Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey until
even complete independence from India. 1991, and laws banning its use in broadcasts and class-
rooms remain in force. Kurdish nationalists, for their part,
DIVIDING THE KURDS AMONG have waged a guerrilla war since 1984 against the Turkish
army. Kurds in other countries have fared just as poorly as
NATIONALITIES those in Turkey. Iran's Kurds secured an independent re-
public in 1946, but it lasted less than a year. Iraq's Kurds
A prominent example of an ethnicity divided among sev- have made several unsuccessful attempts to gain indepen-
eral countries in western Asia is the Kurds, who live in the dence, including in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1970s.
Caucasus Mountains (Figure 7-33). The Kurds are Sunni
Muslims who speak a language in the Iranian group of the Afew days after Iraq was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War,
Inda-Iranian branch of Indo-European and have distinc- the country's Kurds launched another unsuccessful rebel-
tive literature, dress, and other cultural traditions. lion. The United States and its allies decided not to resume
their recently concluded fight against Iraq on behalf of
When the victorious European allies carved up the the Kurdish rebels, but after the revolt was crushed, they
Ottoman Empire after World War I, they created an inde- sent troops to protect the Kurds from further attacks by
pendent state of Kurdistan to the south and west of Van the Iraqi army. After the United States attacked Iraq and
Golu (Lake Van) under the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. Before deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003, Lraqi Kurds achieved
the treaty was ratified, however, the Turks, under the lead- even more autonomy, but still not independence. Thus,
ership of Mustafa Kemal (later known as Kemal Ataturk), despite their numbers, the Kurds are an ethnicity with no
fought successfully to expand the territory under their corresponding Kurdish state today. Instead, they are forced
control beyond the small area the allies had allocated to to live under the control of the region's more powerful
them. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 established the nationalities.
modern state of Turkey, with boundaries nearly identical
to the current ones. Kurdistan became part of Turkey and Pauseand Reflect7.9.3
disappeared as an independent state.
Referahead to Figure7-34 on the next page. What is
Today the 30 million Kurds are split among several the largestethnicityin Pakistan?
countries; 14 million live in eastern Turkey, 5 million in
northern Iraq, 4 million in western Iran, 2 million in Syria,

244 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN WESTERN ASIA • Kurds welcomed the United States because they gaine,
more security and autonomy than they had had undE
Learning Outcome 7.3.4 Hussein.

Identify and describe the principal ethnicities in • Sunni Muslim Arabs opposed the U.S.-led attack b1
western Asia. cause they feared loss of power and privilege given t
them by Hussein, who was a Sunni.
The lack of correspondence between the territory occu-
pied by ethnicities and nationalities is especially severe in • Shiite Muslim Arabs also opposed the U.S. presenc
western Asia. Four nationalities in the region-Iraqi, Ira- Although they had been treated poorly by Hussei
nian, Afghan, and Pakistani-encompass dozens of ethnic- and controlled Iraq's post-Hussein government, Sh
ities, most of whom inhabit more than one of the region's ites shared a long-standing hostility toward the Unit€
countries (Figure 7-34): States with their neighbors in Shiite-controlled Iran.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN IRAQ. Approximately three- Iraq's principal ethnic groups are split into regions, wi1
fourths of Iraqis are Arabs, and one-sixth are Kurds. The Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, and Shiites in ti
Arab population is divided among Muslim branches, with south.
two-thirds Shiite and one-third Sunni.
The capital, Baghdad, where one-fourth of the Iraqi pe
The United States led an attack against Iraq in 2003 pie live, has some neighborhoods where virtually all H
that resulted in the removal and death of the country's idents are of one ethnicity, but most areas are mixed.
longtime president, Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials justi- many of these historically mixed neighborhoods, the n
fied removing Hussein because he ran a brutal dictator- nority ethnicity has been forced to move away (Figure 7-3:
ship, created weapons of mass destruction, and allegedly
had close links with terrorists (see Chapter 8). The major ethnicities are divided into numerous trit
and clans (Figure 7-36). Most Iraqis actually have stron~
Having invaded lraq and removed Hussein from power, loyalty to a tribe or clan than to the nationality or a maj
the United States expected an enthusiastic welcome from the ethnicity.
Iraqi nation. Instead, the United States became embroiled in
a complex and violent struggle among ethnic groups: ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN IRAN. The most numerc
ethnicity is Persian, but Azeri and Baluchi represE
important minorities. Persians constitute the worl
largest ethnic group that adheres to Shiite Islam. Persi,

$1)'£ Georgian Persian -Tajik

KAZAKHSTAN

-Abkhaz

Hazara Punjabi • Turkmen

Kurd - ShiiteArab Uzbek

• Ossetlan Sparsely
populated

CHINA

SAUDI l~ 50"E
ARABIA

l\OMAN INDIA

100 200MIIH ci,er,• )
0 100 200~- ... 8"111

Arabian Sea

\ 60'!

.A.FIGURE 7-34 ETHNICITIES IN WESTERN ASIA Thecomplexdistributioonfethnicitieasndnationalities
acrosswesternAsiaisa majorsourceof conflict.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 245

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN AFGHANISTAN. The most nume-
rous ethnicities in Afghanistan are Pashtun, Tajik, and
Hazara. The current unrest among Afghanistan's ethnicities
dates from 1979, with the start of a rebellion by several
ethnic groups against the government, which was being
defended by more than 100,000 troops from the Soviet
Union. Unable to subdue the rebellion, the Soviet Union
withdrew its troops in 1989, and the Soviet-installed
government in Afghanistan collapsed in 1992.

After several years of infighting among ethnicities, a fac-
tion of the Pashtun called the Taliban gained control over
most of the country in 1995. The Taliban imposed very
harsh, strict laws on Afghanistan, according to Islamic val-
ues as the Taliban interpreted them (see Chapter 6). The
United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and overthrew

the Taliban-led government because it was harboring ter-
rorists (see Chapter 8). Removal of the Taliban unleashed
a new struggle for control of Afghanistan among the coun-
try's many ethnic groups, including the Taliban.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN PAKISTAN. The most numerous

A. FIGURE7-35 ETHNICITIES IN BAGHDAD Baghdadcontainsa mix ethnicity in Pakistan is Punjabi, but the border area with
of SunnisS, hiitesa, ndothergroups.Manyneighborhoodws eretraditionally Afghanistan is principally Baluchl and Pash tun. The Punjabi

mixed,but in recentyearsthe minoritygrouphasbeenforcedto migrate. have been the most numerous ethnicity since ancient times

in what is now Pakistan. As with the neighboring Pashtun,

TURKEY the Punjabi converted to Islam after they were conquered

$J~,ool?K)M&J!$~ftlsby the Muslim army in the seventh century. The Punjabi

remained Sunni Muslims rather than convert to Shiite

. ? Islam like their neighbors the Pashtun, who comprise
Pakistan's second-largest ethnicity, especially along the
._l(Jr!mk border with Afghanistan. Fighting between Pakistan's

"unh Tikr~• ,'~•As•SUJayman,yah"- N army and supporters of the Taliban forced Pakistanis to

~.,, ~,.~--~ '010s • RA N leave their homes and move into camps, where they were
fed by international relief organizations.
Al Ha<flthn•h~
S-~',mnrr~a KhMaq1•n Pause and Reflect 73.4
\ How do the ethnic complexities of western Asia
.If make it difficult to set up stable democratic
governments?
8oqubah
BagMad
Sy r ian J

Ar Rutbah. .fArRamnd.t,,. •

JOODAN Desert l V -....AlFo)I\JJ~h
Ka,5, 1,. ,,AIHlllah

l

AnNajar• ,' ~Adlilwaniyah

ShiiteArab(55%) AsSarnawah• CHECK-IN:KEY ISSUE3
Kurds(21%) n Nosl~ah"
SunnAi rab(18.5%) Why Do Conflicts Arise among Ethnicities?
Christians(3.5%) AIBUII•
Turcoman(s2%)

Mandean(s0.5%) SAUDI ✓ Nationality is identity with a group of people
- mixedShiiteArab ARABIA who share legal attachment and personal

andSunnAi rab

4 FIGURE7-36 ETHNICITIESIN IRAQ Iraqis hometo around150distinct allegiance to a particular country.
tribes.Someof the largeronesareshownonthe map. ✓ Countries such as Lebanon and Sri Lanka have

difficulty peacefully combining ethnicities into

are believed to be descendants of the Indo-European one nationality.

tribes that began migrating from Central Asia into what is ✓ Some ethnicities, such as the Kurds, are divided
now Iran several thousand years ago (see Chapter 5). The among more than one nationality.
Persian Empire extended from present-day Iran west as far
as Egypt during the fifth and fourth centuries B.c.After ✓ Lack of correspondence between ethnicities

the Muslim army conquered Persia in the seventh century, and nationalities is especially severe in western

most Persians converted to Sunni Islam. The conversion to Asia.

Shiite Islam came primarily in the fifteenth century.

246 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

KEY ISSUE4 an ethnically homogeneous region. In recent years, ethnic
cleansing has been carried out primarily in Europe and Afrlca.
Why Do Ethnicities
Ethnic cleansing is undertaken to rid an area of an en.
Engage in Ethnic tire ethnicity so that the surviving ethnic group can be
Cleansing and the sole inhabitants. The point of ethnic cleansing is not
Genocide? simply to defeat an enemy or to subjugate them, as was
the case in traditional wars. Rather than a clash between
■ Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans armies of male soldiers, ethnic cleansing involves the re-
■ Ethnic Cleansing and Genodde moval of every member of the less powerful ethnicity-
women as well as men, children as well as adults, the frai1
in Sub-Saharan Africa
elderly as well as the strong youth.
Learning Outcome 7.4.1 The largest forced migration came during World War
Describe the process of ethnic cleansing.
II (1939-1945) because of events leading up to the war,
Throughout history, ethnic groups have been forced to flee the wc1ritself, and postwar adjustments (Figure7-37\ Espe-
from other ethnic groups' more powerful armies. Ethnic cially notorious was the deportation by the German Nazis
cleansing is a process in which a more powerful ethnic of millions of}ews, gypsies, and other ethnic groups to the
group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create infamous concentration camps, where they exterminated
most _ofthem.

After World War II ended, millions of ethnic Germans,
Poles, Russians, and other groups were forced to migrate as
a result of boundary changes. For example, when a portion
of eastern Germany became part of Poland, the Germans
living in the region were forced to move west to Germany
and Poles were allowed to move into the area. Similarly,
Poles were forced to move when the eastern portion of
Poland was turned over to the Soviet Union.

RUSSIA ◄ FIGURE 7-37 FORCED

MIGRATION OF ETHNICITIES

AFTER WORLD WAR II The
largestnumberwerePolesforcedto
movefromterritoryoccupiedby the
SovietUnion(nowRussia)G, ermans
forcedto migratefromterritory
takenoverby Polandand theSoviet
Union,andRussianfsorcedto return
to the SovietUnionfromWestern
Europe.

-Germans - SettledbyInternational
-Russians RefugeOe rganization
~Poles
-Czechs 2.9 Populatiomnovemem
(inmlllions)
land addedlo
U.S.S.A. ;,
resent-dabi «dersaieshQvfn

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 247

Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans expelled in 1948 from the Soviet-dominated military
alliance for being too independent minded. Yugosla-
The scale of forced migration during World War II has not ' via's Communists permitted more communication and
interaction with Western democracies than did other
been repeated, but in recent years ethnic cleansing within ' Eastern European countries.

Europe has occurred in portions of former Yugoslavia, es- Six republics within Yugoslavia-Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia- -
pecially Bosnia & Herzegovina and Kosovo. Ethnic cleans- • had more autonomy from the national government to
ing in the former Yugoslavia is part of a complex pattern run their own affairs than was the case in other Eastern
European countries.
of ethnic diversity in the region of southeastern Europe
Five of the republics were named for the country's five
known as the Balkan Peninsula. The region, about the size recognized ethnic groups-Croats, Macedonians, Mon-
tenegrens, Serbs, and Slovenes. Bosnia & Herzegovina
of Texas, is named for the Balkan Mountains (known in contained a mix of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.

Slavic languages as Stara Planina), which extend east-west •
across the region. The Balkans includes Albania, Bulgaria,

Greece, and Romania, as well as several countries that once

comprised Yugoslavia.

MULTIETHNIC YUGOSLAVIA • Four official languages were recognized-Croatian,
Macedonian, Serbian, and Slovene. Montenegrens

In June 1914 the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was spoke Serbian.

assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serb who sought indepen-

dence for Bosnia. The Incident sparked World War I. After Pause and Reflect 7.4.1

World War I, the allies created a new country, Yugoslavia, What is an example of another country that is

to unite several Balkan ethnicities that spoke similar South inhabited primarily by people of Slavic ethnicity?

Slavic languages (Figure 7-38). The prefix "Yugo" in the

country's name derives from the Slavic ~-------.....,----------~-------------,,

word for "south." POLAND • 100 200Milts
Under the long leadership of Josip •1-

Broz Tito, who governed Yugoslavia I.:> 200~thl'l

from 1953 until his death in 1980, UKRAINE

Yugoslavs liked to repeat a refrain

that roughly translates as follows:

"Yugoslavia has seven neighbors, six

republics, five nationalities, four lan-

guages, three religions, two alpha-

bets, and one dinar" (Figure 7-39). ROMANIA
Specifically:

• Seven neighbors of Yugoslavia in- Black Sea
cluded three longtime democra-
cies (Austria, Greece, and Italy) I
and four states then governed by
Communists (Albania, Bulgaria, C J .,, TURKEY
Hungary, and Romania). The diver-
sity of neighbors reflected Yugosla-
via's strategic location between the
Western democracies and Com-
munist Eastern Europe. Although
a socialist country, Yugoslavia was
militarily neutral after it had been

► FIGURE 7-38 LANGUAGES IN SOUTHERN 35•1, IH 20'E

AND EASTERN EUROPE AfterWorldWarI, lndo•EuropeFaanmily 10'(
worldleaderscreatedseveranl ewstotesand
realignedtheboundarieosfexistingonesso Balto-SlavlcBranch RomanceBranch Othebrranches otherFamilies
thatthe boundarieosf stalesmatchedlanguage
• Bulgarian Polish Slovene • Friulian Albanian AltaicTurkish
boundarieass closelyas possibleT.[,,essetate Uralic(Magyar)
boundariepsrovedtobe relativelsyt1t,J,feormuch Croatian • Russian Ukrainian Italian • Germanic
of thetwentiethcenturyI.nthe latetwentieth
Czech Serbian •Romansh Greek
centuryth, eregionbecamea centerofconflict
amongspeakeros fdifferenltanguages. Macedonian Slovak Romanian

~IHlllllfflHHllff

248 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

HUNGARY Z5 ,._ Rivalries among ethnicities re.
0 15 50KJIOfflttffl surfaced in Yugoslavia during the
WE 1980s after Tito's death, leading to
AROMANIA the breakup of the country. Breaking
• Albanians • Bulgarians away to form independent countries
N were Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia,
Croats • Hungarians Macedonia, and Slovenia during the
GREECE 1990s and Montenegro in 2006. The
Macedonians - Montenegrins breakup left Serbia standing on its
own as well.
• Muslims Serbs
As long as Yugoslavia comprised
SIOvenes noJl(edominant one country, ethnic groups were not
m~jority especially troubled by the division of
the country into six republics. But
ll'E when Yugoslavia's republics were
transformed from local government
units tnto five separate countries,
ethnicities fought to redefine the
boundaries. Not only did the bound-
aries of Yugoslavia's six republics fail
to match the territory occupied by
the five major nationalities, but the
country contained other important
ethnic groups that had not received
official recognition as nationalities.

.A FIGURE 7.39 YUGOSLAVIA UNTIL ITS BREAKUP IN 1992 Yugoslavia
comprisedsixrepublics(plusKosovoandVojvodinaa,utonomoursegions
within theRepubliocf Serbia).

• Three major religions included Roman Catholic in the ITALY
north, Orttlodox in the east, and Islam in the south.
\ 21)'! 7 TURKEY
Croats and Slovenes were predominantly Roman Cath-
olic, Serbs and Macedonians predominantly Orthodox, ,s•E: l ~--
and Bosnians and Montenegrens predominantly Muslim.
- LimitsofOttomanEmpire 't
• Two of the four official languages-Croatian and Slo- Independen1t817-1830
vene-were written in the Roman alphabet; Macedo- Independen1t878 GREECE
nian and Serbian were written in Cyrillic. Most linguists LosttoAustria-Hunga1ry878
outside Yugoslavia considered Serbian and Croatian to Independen1t908 ,oo ZOOMIies
be the same language except with different alphabets. OttomanEmpire1908
100 200 KlfOfllClffl
• One, the refrain concluded, was the dinar, the national - Yugoslavi1a946-1991 :is·
unit of currency. This meant that despite cultural diver- - Boundarie2s013
sity, common economic interests kept Yugoslavia's na-
tionalities unified. 25'E

The Balkan Peninsula, a complex assemblage of ethnici- • FIGURE 7-40 THE BALKANSIN 1914
ties, has long been a hotbed of unrest (Figure 7-40). North- At theoutbreakof WorldWarI,Austria-Hungarcyontrolledthenorthernpart1
ern portions were incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian theregion,includingall or partof CroatiaS, loveniaa,ndRomaniaT.heOttom,
Empire; southern portions were ruled by the Ottomans. Empirecontrolledsomeof thesouth,althoughduringthenineteenthcentury
Austria-Hungary extended its rule farther south in 1878 to hadlostcontrolofAlbania,Bosnia& HerzegovinaG,reeceR, omaniaa,ndSerbi
include Bosnia & Herzegovina, where the majority of the
people had been converted to Islam by the Ottomans.

The creation of Yugoslavia brought stability that lasted
for most of the twentieth century. Old animosities among
ethnic groups were submerged, and younger people began
to identify themselves as Yugoslavs rather than as Serbs,
Croats, or Montenegrens.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 249

CONTEMPORARYGEOGRAPHICTOOLS

DocumentingEthnicCleansing

Early reports of ethnic cleansing by Hgure 7-41 shows the village's the north of the people are civil-
Serbs in the former Yugoslavia were houses and farm buildings clus- ian cars and truck5.
so shocking that many people dis- tered on the left side, with fields
missed them as journalistic exagger- on the outskirts of the village, • Illustrating step ·{, the second
ation or partisan propaganda. It toot... including the center and right photograph of the sequence
one of geography's most important portions of the photograph. t\s showed the same location a
analytic tools, aerial-photography discussed in Chapter 12, rural short time later, with one major
interpretation, to provide irrefutable settlements in mo::.I of the world change-the people and \'Chicles
eYidence of the process, as well as have houses and farm bmldings massed in the field in the first
the magnitude, of ethnic cleansing. cluste(ed logether and surround-
ed by field::. rather than in i~o- photograph are gone-no people
A series of three photographs lated, indi,idual farms typical of
taken by NATO air reconnaissance North America. and no vehicle:..
O\'er the village of Glodane, in west-
ern Kosovo, illustrated the four steps • [llustrating step 2, the farm field • Illustrating step 4, the third pho-
in ethnic cleansing. Figure 7-41 is immediately to the east of the tograph showed that the build-
the first of the three photos: main north-south road is filled ings in the village had been set
with the villagers. At the scale that on fire.
• Illustrating step 1, the red circles the photograph is reproduced in
in Figure 7-41 show the location this book, the people appear as a Aerial photogrnphs such as
of Serb armored vehicles along dark mass. The white rectangles to these not only ''proved" that eth-
the main street of the village . nic cleansing was occurring but also
provided critical evidence to pros-
ecute Serb leaders for war crimes.

.& FIGURE7-41 EVIDENCEOF ETHNICCLEANSINGIN KOSOVO Ethniccleansingby SerbsforcedAlbanianslivingin
Kosovoto fleein 1999T. hevillageof GlodanIesonthewest(left)sideoftheroadT. hevillagersandtheirvehiclehsavebeen
roundedupandplacedinthefieldeastof theroadT. heredcirclesshowthelocationsof Serbarmoredvehicles.

I', I'] ·1 'III l ,,I'!I I, ,,1 ' qir ·· · \

1 ,
111' 1 , i1 ' 1 1i r , . · II 111,1 1

1 ,
1 , , I I'
I
11 I I' ' II I:I: ' I Ii I I J I'
I •I
' I• I

250 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BOSNIA

Learning Outcome 7.4.2

Explain the concept of ethnic cleansing in the
Balkans.

The creation of a viable nationality has proved especially .t. FIGURE 7-42 ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
difficult in the case of Bosnia & Herzegovina. At the time
of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the population of Bosnia & (top)TheStariMost(oldbridge)b, uiltbytheTurksin 1566acrosstheNeretvaRiv
Herzegovina was 48 percent Bosnian Muslims, 37 percent wasan importantsymboland touristattractionin the city of Mostar.(middl
Serbs, and 14 percent Croats. Bosnian Muslim was consid- Thebridgewasblownupby Croatsin 1993,inanattemptto demoralizeBosni,
ered an ethnicity rather than a nationality. Rather than Muslimsaspartof ethniccleansing(bottom)W, iththeendofthewarin Bosnia
live in an independent multiethnic state with a Muslim Herzegovinath,ebridgewasrebuiltin 2004.
plurality, Bosnia & Herzegovina's Serbs and Croats fought
to unite the portions of the republic that they inhabited
with Serbia and Croatia, respectively.

To strengthen their cases for breaking away from Bos-
nia & Herzegovina, Serbs and Croats engaged in ethnic
cleansing of Bosnian Muslims (Figure 7-42). Ethnic cleans-
ing ensured that areas did not merely have majorities of
Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats but were ethnically
homogeneous and therefore better candidates for union
with Serbia and Croatia. Ethnic cleansing by Bosnian Serbs
against Bosnian Muslims was especially severe because
much of the territory inhabited by Bosnian Serbs was sep-
arated from Serbia by areas with Bosnian Muslim majori-
ties. By ethnically cleansing Bosnian Muslims from inter-
vening areas, Bosnian Serbs created one continuous area of
Bosnian Serb domination rather than several discontinu-
ous ones.

Accords reached in Dayton, Ohio, in 1.996 by lead-
ers of the various ethnicities divided Bosnia & Herzegov-
ina into three regions, one each dominated, respectively,
by the Bosnian Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. The Bosnian
Croat and Muslim regions were combined into a federa-
tion, with some cooperation between the two groups, but
the Serb region has operated with almost complete inde-
pendence in all but name from the others. In recognition
of the success of their ethnic cleansing, Bosnian Serbs re-
ceived nearly half of the country, although they comprised
one-third of the population, and Bosnian Croats got one-
fourth of the land, although they comprised one-sixth of
the population. Bosnian Muslims, one-half of the popu-
lation before the ethnic cleansing, got one-fourth of the
land (Figure 7-43).

Pause and Reflect 7.4.2

In which regions within Bosnia & Herzegovina did
Serbs gain most of their territory?

ETHNIC CLEANSINGIN KOSOVO the population. Under Tito, ethnic Albanians in Koso·
received administrative autonomy and national identit)
After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia remained a multi-
ethnic country. Particularly troubling was the province of Serbia had a historical claim to Kosovo, having co
Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians comprised 90 percent of trolled it between the twelfth and fourteenth centuri•
Serbs fought an important-though losing-battle

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 251

◄ FIGURE 7-43 ETHNICITIES IN BOSNIA &
HERZEGOVINA BEFOREAND AFTER ETHNIC
CLEANSING Theterritoryoccupiedby Bosnian
Muslims(left) wasconsiderablyreducedasa
resultof ethniccleansingby BosnianSerbsand
Croats(right).

MONTENEGRO

Adriatic Sea Adriatic Sea

,a•! 18'E
•2'N

Bosnia& Herzegovina Bosnia& Herzegovina
beforeelhniccleansing alterethnicclunslng

Crnals Serbs Predominantfy Predominantfy
Muslims nopredominant Croat Serb

majority • Predqminantly• Bosoian-
Bosman Croalmix

Kosovo against the Ottoman Empire in 1389. In recogni- Kosovo. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in
tion of its role in forming the Serb ethnicity, Serbia was 2008. Around 60 countries, including the United States,
given control of Kosovo when Yugoslavia was created in recognize Kosovo as an independent country, but Serbia
the early twentieth century. and Russia oppose it.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia took direct BALKANIZATION
control of Kosovo and launched a campaign of ethnic
cleansing of the Albanian majority. The process of ethnic A century ago, the term Balkanized was widely used to
cleansing involved four steps: describe a small geographic area that could not success-
fully be organized into one or more stable states because
1. Move a large amount of military equipment and per- it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-
sonnel in to a village that has no strategic value (see standing antagonisms toward each other. World leaders at
the Contemporary Geographic Tools feature. the time regarded Balkanization-the process by which
a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnici-
2. Round up all the people in the village. In Bosnia, Serbs ties-as a threat to peace throughout the world, not just in
often segregated men from women, children, and old a small area. They were right: Balkanization led directly to
people. The men were placed in detention camps or World War I because the various nationalities in the Bal-
"disappeared"-undoubtedly killed-and the others kans dragged into the war the larger powers with which
were forced to leave the village. In Kosovo, men were they had alliances.
herded together with the others rather than killed.
After two world wars and the rise and fall of commu-
3. Force the people to leave the village. The villagers were nism during the twentieth century, the Balkans have once
typically for,ced into a convoy-some in the vehicles, again become Balkanized in the twenty-first century. Will
others on fQot-heading for the Albanian border. the United States, Europe, and Russia once again be drawn
reluctantly into conflict through entangled alliances in
4. Destroy the vacated village by setting it on fire. the Balkans? lf peace comes to the Balkans, it will be be-
cause in a tragic way ethnic cleansing "worked." Millions
At its peak in 1999, Serb ethnic cleansing had forced of people were rounded up and killed or forced to migrate
750,000 of Kosovo's 2 million ethnic Albania_n residents because they constituted ethnic minorities. Ethnic homo-
from their homes, mostly to camps in Albania. Outraged geneity may be the price of peace in areas that once were
by the ethnic cleansing, the United States and Western multiethnic.
European countries, operating through the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), launched an air attack
against Serbia. The bombing campaign ended when Serbia
agreed to withdraw all of its soldiers and police from

-..._

252 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
in Sub-Saharan Africa

Learning Outcome 7.4.3
Identify the principal episodes of genocide in
northeastern Africa.

In some places, ethnic competition has led to even more
extreme actions than ethnic cleansing, including geno-
cide. Genocide is the mass killing of a group of people in
an attempt to eliminate the entire group from existence.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been plagued by conflicts among
ethnic groups that have resulted in genocide in recent
years, especially in northeastern and central Africa.

ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE IN • FIGURE 7-45 DARFUR REFUGEE CAMP RefugeefsromDarfurarelivin,
NORTHEASTERN AFRICA in a campinAdreC, had.

In northeastern Africa, three distinct ethnic conflicts in re- establishment of Southern Sudan as an independe,
cent years have taken place in Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia. state in 2011. However, fighting resumed as the go·
em men ts of Sudan and South Sudan could not agree c
SU DAN. In Sudan, several civil wars have raged since the boundaries between the two countries.
1980s between lhe Arab-Muslim dominated government
in the north and other ethnicities in the south, west, and • Darfur. As Sudan's religion-based civil war was win
east (Figure 7-44): ing down, an ethnic war erupted in Sudan's wester
most region, Darfur. Resenting discrimination ar
• South Sudan. Black Christian and animist ethnicities neglect by the national government, Darfur's bla
resisted government attempts to convert the country Africans launched a rebellion in 2003. Marauding Ar.
from a multiethnic society to one nationality tied to nomads, known as janjaweed, with the support of t
Muslim traditions. A north-south war between 1983 and Sudanese government, crushed Darfur's black popu
2005 resulted in the death of an estimated 1.9 million tion, made up mainly of settled farmers; 480,000 ha
Sudanese, mostly civilians. The war ended with the been killed and another 2.8 million have been livi
in dire conditions in refugee camps in the harsh des•
EGYPT environment of Darfur (Figure 7-45). Actions of Suda:
government troops, including mass murders and rape
LIBYA civilians, have been termed genocide by many ott
countries, and charges of war crimes have been fil
CHAD / against Sudan's leaders.

I • Eastern front. Ethnicities in the east fought Sudan
government forces between 2004 and 2006, with 1
SUDAN support of neighboring Eritrea. At issue was disbu,
ment of profits from oil.

ETHIOPIA ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA. Eritrea, located along
Red Sea, became an Italian colony in 1890. Ethiopia,
.t. FIGURE7-44 SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN SouthSudanbecamean independent country for more than 2,000 years, ,
independenctountryin 2011. captured by ltaly during the 1930s. After World Wai
Ethiopia regained its independence, and the Uni
Nations awarded Eritrea to Ethiopia (Figure 7-46). ·
United Nations expected Ethiopia to permit Eri'
considerable authority to run its own affairs, but Ethic

dissolved the Eritrean legislature and banned the us1
Tigrinya, Eritrea's major local language. The Eritrc
rebelled, beginning a 30-year fight for independ€
(1961-1991). During this civil war, an estimated 665,
Eritrean refugees fled to neighboring Sudan.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 253

MALIA /ND/AN A country of 5 million people split evenly between
OCEAN Christian and Muslim, Eritrea has two principal ethnic
groups: Tigrinya and Tigre. At least in the first years of
-r"•"'IMooooliohu) independence, a strong sense of national identity united
Eritrea's ethnicities as a result of shared experiences during
Bi • 5<t( the 30-year war to break free of Ethiopia.

I• Even with the loss of Eritrea, Ethiopia remained a com-
plex multiethnic state. From the late nineteenth century
A FIGURE7-46 HORN OFAFRICA EritreabrokeawayfromEthiopiato until the 1990s, Ethiopia was controlled by the Amharas,
becomeanindependenctountryin theearly1990sS. omaliaisdividedintoseveral who are Christians. After the government defeat in the
territoriescontrolledbyvariousethinicgroups. early 1990s, power passed to a combination of ethnic
groups. The Oromo, who are Muslim fundamentalists
Eritrean rebels defeated the Ethiopian army in 1991, from the south, are the largest ethnicity in Ethiopia, at
and 2 years later Eritrea became an independent state. But 34 percent of the population. The Amhara, who comprise
war between Ethiopia and Eritrea flared up again in 1998 27 percent of the population, had banned the use of-lan-
because of disputes over the location of the border. Eritrea guages other than Amharic, including Oromo.
justified its claim through a 1900 treaty between Ethiopia
and Italy, which then controlled Eritrea, but Ethiopia cited SOMALIA. On the surface, Somalia should face fewer
a 1902 treaty with Italy. Ethiopia defeated Eritrea in 2000 ethnic divisions than its neighbors in the Horn of Africa.
and took possession of the disputed areas. Battles along Somalis are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims and speak
the border have continued (Figure 7-47). Somali. Most share a sense that Somalia is a nation-state,
with a national history and culture.
• FIGURE7.47 ERITREA-ETHIOPIA BORDER TheborderbetweenEritrea
(backgrounda)ndEthiopia(foregroundi)s unmarkedhere. Somalia's 9 million inhabitants are divided among sev-
eral ethruc groups known as clans, each of which is divided
into a large number of subclans. Traditionally, the major
clans occupied different portions of Somalia. In 1991, a
dictatorship that ran the country collapsed, and various
clans and subclans claimed control over portions of the
country. Clans have declared independent states of So-
maliland in the north, Puntland in the northeast, Galrnu-
dug in the center, and Southwestern Somalia in the south.

The United States sent several thousand troops to
Somalia in 1992, after an estimated 300,000 people, mostly
women and children, died from famine and from war-
fare among clans. The purpose of the mission was to pro-
tect delivery of food by international relief organizations
to starving Somali refugees and to reduce the number of
weapons in the hands of the clan and subclan armies.
After peace talks among the clans collapsed in 1994, U.S.
troops withdrew .

Islamist militias took control of much of Somalia be-
tween 2004 and 2006. Neighboring countries were drawn
into the conflict, Eritrea on the side of the lslamists and
Ethiopia against them. Claiming that some of the lead-
ers were terrorists, the United States also opposed the
Islam ists and launched air strikes in 2007. The fighting
generated several hundred thousand refugees. lslamist mi-
litias withdrew from most of Somalia in 2006 but have
since returned and again control much of the country. The
ongoing conflict worsened the impact of a recent drought
(see the Sustainability and Inequality in Our Global Village
feature and Figure 7-48).

PauseandReflect7.4.3

Which countries with ethnic conflicts described in
Key Issues 3 and 4 have had U.S.troops sent to try
to restore the peace?

254 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

ETHNIC CLEANSING AND GENOCIDE RWANDA. Genocide in Rwanda in 1994 involved Huttts
IN CENTRAL AFRICA murdering hundreds of thousands of Tutsis (as well as
Hutus sympathetic to the Tutsis). The genocide began
Learning Outcome 7.4.4 after an airplane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and
Identify the principal episodes of genocide in central Burundi-both Hutus-was shot down by a surface-to.
Africa. air missile. The attacker was never identified, but most
international intelligence organizations-including those
Long-standing conflicts between two ethnic groups, the of the United States and France-<:oncluded that it was a
Hutus and Tutsis, lie at the heart of a series of wars in cen- Hutu unhappy with the presidents' attempts to seek peace
tral Africa. The two ethnicities speak the same language, between Hutus and Tutsis.
hold similar beliefs, and practice similar social customs,
Hutus constituted a majority of the population of
tw8'.and intermarriage has lessened the physical differences be- Rwanda historically, but Tutsis controlled the kingdom of
the two groups. Yet Hutus and Tutsis have engaged Rwanda for several hundred years and turned the Hutus
in large-scale ethnic cleansing and genocide: into their serfs. Rwanda became a colony of Germany in
1899, and after the Germans were defeated in World War I,
• Hutus were settled farmers, growing crops in the fertile the League of Nations turned over control to Belgium.
hills and valleys of present-day Rwanda and Burundi, Belgian administrators permitted a few Tutsis to attend
known as the Great Lakes region of central Africa. university and hold responsible government positions,
while excluding the Hutus altogether. Separate identity
• Tutsis were cattle herders who migrated to present-day cards were issued to the two ethnicities.
Rwanda and Burundi from the Rift Valley of western
Kenya beginning 400 years ago. When Rwanda became an independent country in
1962, Hutus gained power and undertook ethnic cleans-
Relations between settled farmers and herders are often ing and genocide against the Tutsis, many of whom fled to
uneasy; this is also an element of the ethnic cleansing in
Darfur described earlier in the chapter. neighboring Uganda.
Descendants of the ethnically cleansed Tutsis invaded

Rwanda in 1990. An agreement to share power was signed

SUSTAINABILITYAND INEQUALITYIN OURGLOBALVILLAGE

Ethn·icCleansingand Drought

\fore than 2 million Somalis-one- • FIGURE7-48 SOMALIA Somalviictimosffightingandfaminelineupforfoodandmedical
fourth of the country's population- assistancein2011.
are classified as refugees or internally
displaced persons. J\s elsewhere in International organizations distrib- a renewal of fighting or a bit le
sub-Saharan Africa, continued fight- uted seeds and dug irrigation ca- rainfall could push the country ba
ing among ethnic groups and the nals to help in the longer term, but into famine.
absence of a strong national govern-
ment able to maintajn order have
contributed to the large number of
refugees.

Adding to the woes of the Somali
people, the worst drought in 60 years
hit the country in 2010 and 2011,
especially in the south (Figure 7-48).
It is impossible to count the number
of Somalis forced to migrate because
of famine rather than civil war; both
factors probably affect most Somalis.
Because of the civil war, much of
the food and water sent by inter-
national relief organizations could
not get through to the people in
need. Improved weather in 2012
resulted in a larger harvest, and

more supplies were reaching people.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 255

J,,.FIGURE7-49 ETHNICCLEANSINGINRWANDAHuturefugeeisn Congo. from the sale of minerals while impoverishing the rest of the
country. After succeecUngMobutu as president, Laurent Kabila
in 1993, but after the assassination of the president in relied heavily on Tutsis and permitted them to kill some of
1994, Hutus launched genocide against Tutsis, killing an the Hutus who had been responsible for atrocities against
estimated 800,000. The Hutu genocide ended after three Tutsis in the early 1990s. But Kabila soon split with the Tutsis,
months, with Tutsis gaining control of the country. Two and the Tutsis once again found themselves offering support
million Hutu fled to neighboring countries in the ethnic to rebels seeking to overthrow Congo's government.
cleansing that followed the Tutsi victory (Figure 7-49).
Kabila turned for support to Hutus, as well as to Mayi
CONGO. The conflict between Hutus and Tutsis spilled Mayi, another ethnic group in the Congo that also hated
into neighboring countries, especially the Democratic Tutsis. Armies from Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and
Republic of Congo. The region's largest and most populous other neighboring countries came to Kabila's aid. Kabila
country, the Congo is thought to have seen the world's was assassinated in 2001 and succeeded by his son, who
deadliest war since the end of World War II in 1945. An negotiated an accord with rebels the following year. De-
estimated 5.4 million had died in Congo civil wars as of spite the accord, conflict among the country's many 1eth-
2008, when the most heated fighting ceased. nicities has continued, and casualties have mounted.v

Tutsis were instrumental in the successful overthrow of COLONIAL LEGACY. Ethnic conflict is widespread
the Congo's longtime president, Joseph Mobutu, in 1997. in Africa largely because the present-day boundaries of
Mobutu had amassed a several-billion-dollar personal fortune countries do not match the boundaries of ethnic groups
(Figure 7-50). During the late nineteenth and early
Medttem..i.... twentieth centuries, European countries carved up the
continent into a collection of colonies, with little regard
-<"" for the distribution of ethnicities.

LIBYA Traditionally, the most important unit of African society
was the tribe rather than independent states with political
EGYPT \ ...I and economic self-determination. Africa contains several
thousand ethnicities (usually referred to as tribes) with a com-
mon sense of language, religion, and social customs (refer to
Figure 5-18 for a map of African languages). The precise nu~-
ber of tribes is impossible to determine because boundanes
separating them are not usually defined clearly. Further, it
is hard to determine whether a particular group forms a dis-
tinct tribe or is part of a larger collection of similar groups.

When the European colonies in Africa became inde-
pendent states, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, t?e
boundaries of the new states typically matched the colonial
administrative units imposed by the Europeans. As a result,
some tribes were divided among more than one modern
state, and others were grouped with dissimilar tribes.

"II"S ' ... -,, Pause and Reflect 7.4.4

SAOTOMl.\NOl"NNCtPE,£' 'GABON 0 Referring to Figure 7-50, are there any countrie_s _i~

EOUATOAIALGUtHIA RWIJjO, Africa where the boundaries match those of ethmctt1es?

REP.OFCOMGO/ 8u N~' IND/AN CHECK-IN:KEYISSUE 4

OCl;AN Why Do Ethnicities Engage in Ethnic
Cleansing?
ATLANTIC -, nZIMBABWE 1
OCEAN NAMIBIA ✓ Ethnic cleansing is a process in which a more
powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less
N ETSWAH ~MOL\Mf'IIQUE SWA21UHO powerful one in order to create an ethnically
homogeneous region.
Bordm SO"'UTH/hYr -
-Countries ✓ Genocide is the mass killing of a group of
people in an attempt to eliminate the entire
Ethnicities group from existence.

AFRICA ~LESOTMO

A FIGURE7-50 AFRICA'SMANY ETHNICITIESTheterritoryoccupiedby
ethnicgroupsinAfricararelymatchestheboundarieosf countries.

256 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Summary and Review 2KEY ISSUE

1KEY ISSUE

Where Are Ethnicities Distributed? Why Do Ethnicities Have Distinctive Distributions?

Ethnicity is Identity with a group of people who share the cultural Ethnicities cluster within the United States as a result of distinctive
traditions of a particular homeland or hearth. E~hnloity is often patterns of migration.
confused with race, which is identity ¼ith a group of people who
share a biological ancestor. LEARNING OUTCOME 7.2.1: Describe the patterns of forced and
voluntary migration of Afrlean Americans, Hispanic Americans,
LEARNINGOUTCOME7.1.1: Identify and describe the major eth• and Asian Americans to the United States.
nlclties in the United States.
• Many African Americans trace their ancestry to forced migra-
• The three most numer0us ethaicities are Hispanics, African tion from Africa for slavery.
Americans, and Asian Americans.
• Many Hispanics and Asian Americans trace their heritage to
LEAININGOUTCOME7.1.2: Describe the distribution of major pea.pie who migrated in the late Mentieth century for eco-
U.S. ethnicities among states and within urban areas. nomic prospects and political freedom.

• Hispanics are clustered In the Southwest, African Americans LEARNING OUTCOME 7.2.2: Describe the patterns of migration of
in the Southeast, and Asian Americans in the West. African Americans within the United States.

• African Americans and Hispanics are highly clustered in • African Americans migrated in large numbers from the South
urban areas, especially in inner-city neighborhoods. to the North and West in the early twentieth century.

THINKING GEOGRAPHICALLY7.1: A century ago European immi• • African Americans clustered in inner-city ghettos that have
grants to the United States had much stronger ethnic ties than expanded in recent decades.
they do today, Including clustering in specific neighborhoods.
Discuss the rationale for retaining strong ethnic identity in the LEARNING OUTCOME 7.2.3: Explain the laws once used to segre-
United States as opposed to full assimilation Into the American gate races in the United States and South Africa.
nationality identity.
• Segregation of races was legal in the United States and South
GOOGLE EARTH 7.1: Oldtown Mall in Baltimore ls In a pre• Africa until the late twentieth century.
dominantly African American neighborhood. At Google Earth's
ground-level view, does the mall look busy or quiet? THINKING GEOGRAPHICALLY7.2: Despite the 1954 U.S. Supreme
Court decision that racially segregated school systems are inher•
ently unequal, most schools remain segregated, with virtually
none or virtually all African American or Hispanic pupils. As long
as most neighborhoods are segregated, how can racial integration
in the schools be achieved?

GOOGLE EARTH 7.2: Mthatha (known until 2004 as Umtata),
South Africa, is a city in one of the homelands established during
apartheid. In Google Earth's ground-level view, what is the race
of nearly all of the people?

Key Terms Ethnk dean~ing tp. 2.46) A proccs~in which a more powerful ethnic
group forcibly re.movesa less µowcrful one in order to rreatc an
Apartheid (p. 2.36) Laws(no longer in effect) In South Africathat physi- ethnically homogeneous region.
cally separated different races into different geographic .ireas Ethnicity (p. 227) Identity with a group of people lhal share distinct
physical and mental traits as a prodLtetof common heredit} and
Balkanization (p. ZSI) A processby which a state break:.down through cultural traditions.
conOicts among its ethnicities.
Genocide lP-25ZJfhe mass killing of a group of people in an attempt to
Balkanized (p.25 l) Descriptiveof a small geographic area that could not eliminate the entire group from existence.
successfullybe organized into one or more stable states because it was
inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-standing antago- Nationalism (p. B9) Loyaltyand devotion to a particular
nisms toward each other. nationality.

Blockbusting (p. 235) A process by which real estate agents convince Nationality (p. 238) Identity with a group or people that share legal
while property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of fear attachment and personal allegiance to a pacltcular place as a result of
being born there.
that persons of color will soon moveinto the neighborhood.

Centripetal force (p. 239) An attimde that tends to unify people and
enhance support for a state.

Chapter 7: Ethnicities 257

3KEY ISSUE KEY ISSUE4

Why Do Conflicts Arise among Ethnicities? Why Do Ethnicities Engage in Ethnic Cleansing

Conflicts can arise when a country contains several ethnicities and Genocide?
competing with each other for control or dominance. Conflicts
also arise when an ethnicity is divided among more than one Ethnic cleansing is a process in which a more powerful ethnic
country. group forcibly removes a less p0weiful one in order to create an
ethnically homogeneous region.
LEARNING OUTCOME7.3.1: Explain the difference between eth•
nlcity and nati0nalit>y. LEARNING OUTCOME 7.4.1: Describe the process oi ethnic

• Nationality is Identity with a group of people who share legal cleansing.
attachment and p,ersonal allegiance t0 a particular country.
• Ethnic cleansing has been undertaken in recent years in the
• Nationalism is loyalty and devotion to a nationality. Balkans.

LEARNINGOUTCOME7.3.2: Identify an<l describe the principal LEARNINGOUTCOME7.4.2: Explain the concept of ethnic cleans-
ethnicities in Lebanon and Sri Lanka. ing in the Balkans.

• Lebancm and Sri Lanka are examples of countries Where • Balkanizati-on is a process by which a state breaks down
ethnicities have not been able to live in peace. through conflicts among its ethnicities.

LEARNINGOUTCOME7.3.3: Describe how the Kurds, as well as LEARNINGOUTCOME7.4.3: Identify the principal episodes of
ethnicities jn South Asia, have been divided among more than genocide in northeastern Africa.
one nationality.
• Genocide is the mass killing of a group of people in an at-
• Some ethnicities find themselves divided among more than tempt to eliminate the entire group from existence.
one nationality.
LEARNINGOUTCOME7.4.4: Identify the principal episodes of
LEARNINGOUTCOME7.3.4: Identify and describe the principal genocide in central Africa.
ethnicities in western Asia.
• Genocide has been practiced in several places in Africa, in•
• The lack of correspondence between the territory occupied eluding Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Democratic Repub•
by ethnicities and nationalities is especially severe in western tic of Congo.
Asia.
THINKINGGEOGRAPHICALL7Y.4: Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia &
THINKINGGEOGRAPHICALL7Y.3: Ethnicities around the world Herzegovina, once was home to concentrations of many ethnic
seek the ability to be the majority in control of countries. What groups. In retaliation for ethnic cleansing by the Serbs and Cro-
are some of the obstacles to multiple ethnicities sharing power in ats, the Bosnian Muslims now in control of Sarajevo have been
individual countries? forcing other ethnic groups to leave the city, and Sarajevo is now
inhabited overwhelmingly by Bosnian Muslims. Discuss the chal•
GOOGLEEARTH7.3: Fly to Gtiven, Turkey to a village inhabited by lenges in restoring Sarajevo as a multiethnic city.
Kurds. Turn on borders and labels; how far is Gilven from Syria?
From Iraq? GOOGLEEARTH7.4: Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque in Sarajevo, Bosnia
&: Herzegovina, was heavily damaged during ethnic cleansing
and since rebuilt. In ground•level view and 3D, pan around the
mosque; what other religious structures are visible in 3D within
500 meters of the mosque?

Race (p. 227) Identity wllh a group of people des,cnded from a MasteringGeography™
b1ologicalan('estor.
Looking for additional review and test prep materials?
Racism (p. 227\ Beliefthat race is the primary determinant of human Visit the Study Area in MasteringGeography™ to
traits and capdcities and that raciJI dlrferenc,:sproduce an inherent enhanceyour geographicliteracy,spatialreasoningskills,
rnperlority of a paillcu.lar race.
and understandingof this chapter's content by accessing
Racist (p. 227) A pcr~on who subKnbc~ to the beliefs of racism. a variety of resources,including a.tapMasteirn'Mteractive
maps,videos,RSSfeeds,flashcards,web links,self-study
.Sharecropper (p. 23-1)A person who works fields rented from a quizzes,and an eTextversionof The Cultural Landscape.
landowner anti pay\ the rent and repays loans by turning over to the www.masteringgeography.com
1,andownerJ share of the crops.

friangular slave trade 1p.233) Apractice, primarily during the
eighteenth century, in which European ship~ transported ~lavesfrom
Africato Caribbean islands, mula~~esfrom the Caribbean to Europe,
and trade goods from Europe to Africa.

,.-,·. Chapter-

PoliticalGeography

Whydid Moroccobuild this wall across the Sahara Desert? Wholivedhere? Page 293
Page 265

1KEY ISSUE 2KEY ISSUE ---

Where Are States Why Are
Distributed? Nation-States
Difficult to
Create?

A World of Statesp. 261 Nation-Statesand Multination

Earth is divided into approximately200 states. Thiswas not Statesp. 268
alwaysthe case.
Dividingthe world into states of single ethnicitiesh,
difficult.States with multipleethnicitiesare often in tu1

258

A Thisbicyclistis crossingthe RhineRiver
on the Passerelle Mimram Pedestrian
Bridge. He is heading from Strasbourg,
France, to Kehl, Germany.France and
Germanyfougbt for centuries over con•
trol of Strasbourgand the RhineT. hesefor-
mer enemiesare nowallies,havingjoined
withother Europeancountriesto eliminate
passportchecksand other bordercontrols.
TravelbetweenFranceandGermanyis now
as easyas travelbetweentwo U.Ss. tates.

KEY ISSUE-3~~- KEY ISSUE4

WhyDo Why Do States
Boundaries Cause Cooperate and
Problems? Compete with
Each Other?

Drawing a Linein the Sand Statesin War and Peacep. 286
{or SomewhereElse)p. 276
States increasinglycooperate economically,but violence is
Boundariesbetween states and within states are hard to set increasinglyled byterrorists.
and are often controversial.

259

Introducing

Political Geography

When looking at satellite images of Earth, we easily dis-
tinguish places-landmasses and water bodies, mountains
and rivers, deserts and fertile agricultural land, urban areas
and forests. What we cannot see are where boundaries are

located between countries. .A.FIGURE8-1 TUVALU Theislandofluvaluw, ith10,000inhabitants,
To many, national boundaries are more meaningful
becamean independenctountryin 1978.It Isthe world'sfourth-smallest
than natural features. One of Earth's most fundamental
cultural characteristics-one that we take for granted-
is the division of our planet's surface into a collection of

spaces occupied by individual countries. country.

During the Cold War (the late 1940s until the early

1990s), two superpowers-the United States and the Soviet No one can predict where the next war or terrorist a
Union-essentially "ruled" the world. As superpowers,
they competed at a global scale. Many countries belonged tack will erupt, but political geography helps to explru~·r.
to one of two regions, one allied with the former Soviet the cultural and physical factors that underlie political u

Union and the other allied with the United States. rest in the world. Political geographers study how peopl
With the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the global have organized Earth's land surface into countries and all

political landscape changed fundamentally. ln the post- ances, reasons underlying the observed arrangements, anl
Cold War era, the familiar division of the world into the conflicts that result from the organization.
countries or states is crumbling. The United States is less
dominant in the political landscape of the twenty-first 1• KEY ISSUE describes where states are distribute

century, and the Soviet Union no longer exists. Nearly the en lire land area of the world is divided in
'v\Tarshave broken out in recent years-both between

small neighboring states and among cultural groups states, although what constitutes a state i~ not alwa1
within countries-over political control of territory. Old
countries have been broken up into collections of smaller clear-cut.
ones, some barely visible on world maps (Figure 8-1).
2• KEY ISSUE explains wiry states can be difficult to c
Geographic concepts help us to understand the altered
ate. Lornl diversity has iJJ.creasedin political affairs,
political organization of Earth's surface. Geographers ob- individual cultural groups have demanded more co
serve why this familiar division of the world is changing. trol over the territory they inhabit.
We can also use geographic methods to examine the causes
of political change and instability and to anticipate poten- • 3KEY ISSUE looks at boundaries between states a1

tial trouble spots around the world. within states. Boundary lines are not painted on Ear
Today, globalization means more con11ectio11asmong but they might as well be, for these nalional divisio

stales. individual countries have transferred military, eco- are very real.
nomic, and politirnl authority to regional and worldwide
collections of states. Power is exercised through connections • 4KEY ISSUE discusses competition and cooperati
among states created primarily for economic cooperation.
among states. Political conflicts during the twent1·
Despite (or perhaps because of) greater global political century were dominated by the globalization of
cooperation, local diversity has increased in political af- fare, including two world wars involving most of
fairs, as individual cultu_ral groups have demanded more world's states and collections of alUed states. into
control over the territory they inhabit. States have trans- twenty-first century, the attacks against the Uni
ferred power to local governments, but this has not pla- States on September 11, 2001, were initiated not b
cated cultural groups that seek complete independence. hostile state but by a terrorist organization.

260

Chapter 8: Political Geography 261

KEY ISSUE 1 and their capitals. Human geographers now emphasize
a thematic approach. We are concerned with the loca-
Where .Are States tion of activities in the world, the reasons for particular
spatial distributions, and the significance of the arrange-
Distributed? ments. Despite this change in emphasis, you still need to
know the locations of states. Without such knowledge,
■ A World of States you lack a basic frame of reference-knowing where
things are.
■ Challenges in Defining States
The land area occupied by the states of the world
■ Development of State Concept varies considerably. The largest state is Russia, which en-
compasses 17.1 million square kilometers (6.6 million
Astate is an area organ1zed into a political unit and ruled square miles), or 11 percent of the world's entire land area.
by an established government that has control over its in- Other states with more than 5 million square kilometers
ternal and foreign affairs. It occupies a defined territory (2 million square miles) include Canada, the United States,
on Earth's surface and contains a permanent population. China, Brazil, and Australia.
The term country is a synonym for state. A state has sov-
ereignty, which means independence from control of its At the other extreme are about two dozen microstates,
internal affairs by other states. Because the entire area of a which are states with very small land areas. If Russiawere the
state is managed by its national government, laws, army, size of this page, a microstate would be the size of a single
and leaders, it is a good example of a formal or uniform letter on it. The smallest microstate in the United Nations-
region. Monaco (Figure 8-2)-encompasses only 1.5 square kilome-
ters (0.6 square miles).
The term state, as used in political geography, does not
refer to the 50 regional governments inside the United Other UNmember states that are smallerthan 1,000square
States. The SOstates of the United States are subdivisions kilometers (400 square miles) include Andorra, Antigua and
within a single state-the United States of America. Barbuda, Bahrain, Barbados, Dqminica, Grenada, Kiribati,
Liechtenstein, Maldives, Malta, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau,
How many of these states can you name? Old-style St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines,
geography sometimes required memorization of countries San Marino, Sao Tome e Principe, the Seychelles, Singapore,
Tonga, and Tuvalu (refer to Figure 8-1). Many of the
microstates are islands, which explains both their small size
and sovereignty.

◄ FIGURE 8-2

MICROSTATEM: ONACO The
smallestmicrostatein the United
Nations,Monacois a principality,
ruledbya prince.

•

262 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

A World of States The United Nations was not the world's first attempt
at international peacemaking. The UN replaced an ear.
Learning Outcorne 8.1.1 lier organization known as the League of Nations, which
Explain the three eras of rapid growth in UN was established after World War I. The League of Nations
membership. was never an effective peacekeeping organization. The
United States did not join it, despite the fact that Pres-
A map of the world shows that virtually all habitable land ident Woodrow Wilson initiated the idea, because the
belongs to some country or other. But for most of history, U.S. Senate refused to ratify the membership treaty. By
until recently, this was not so. As recently as the 1940s, the the 1930s, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union
world contained only about 50 countries, compared to ap- had all withdrawn, and the League of Nations could
proximately 200 today. not stop aggression by these states against neighboring
countries.
THE UNITED NATIONS
UN members can vote to establish a peacekeeping force
The most important global organization is the United and request states to contribute military forces. The UN
Nations, created at the end of World War II by the victori- is playing an important role in trying to separate war-
ous Allies. During this era of rapid changes in states and ring groups in a number of regions, especially in Eastern
their relationships, the UN has provided a forum for the Europe, Central and Southwest Asia, and sub-Saharan
discussion of international problems. On occasion, the UN Africa. However, any one of the five permanent members
has intervened in conflicts between or within of the Security Council-China, France, Russia (formerly
member states, authorizing military and peace- the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, and the United
keeping actions. In addition, the UN seeks to States-can veto a peacekeeping operation. During the
promote international cooperation to address
global economic problems, promote human
rights, and provide humanitarian relief.

When it was organized in 1945, the UN had
only 51 members, including 49 sovereign states
plus Byelorussia (now Belarus) and Ukraine,
then part of the Soviet Union (Figure 8-3). The
number of UN members reached 193 in 2011.

The UN membership increased rapidly on
three occasions (Figure 8-4):

• 1955. Sixteen countries joined in 1955, I PACIFIC ATU
mostly European countries that had been
liberated from Nazi Germany during World OCEAN oc
War II.

• 1960. Seventeen new members were added IO'
in 1960, all but one a former African colony
of Britain or France. Only four African states 160' 1'0' 20' _...,__ __
were original members of the United Na-
tions-Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South 193members -----..,---------
Africa-and only six more joined during the 0rlg,naml embers5: 1
1950s. 1940s:Added8 ''ll'
1950s:Added24 I
• 1990-1993. Twenty-six countries were added 1960SA: dded42
between 1990 and 1993, primarily due to
the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugo- - 1970s:Added25
slavia. UN membership also increased in the 1980s:Added7
1990s because of the admission of several
microstates.

- 1990sAdded31
2000s:Adde4d
► FIGURE8-3 UN MEMBERSNearlytheentirelandareaof theworld -
201Os:Added1
partof the UN. Nonmember

120' 1011' ii.-

r
Chapter 8: Political Geography 263

200 l Cold War era, the United States and the Soviet Union used
the veto to prevent undesired UN intervention, and it was
0 1,,_, __ .....r.,__ ..__ ______ ......__......_ ____ _ only after the Soviet Union's delegate walked out of a Se-
curity Council meeting in 1950 that the UN voted to send
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 troops to support South Korea. More recently, the opposi-
Year tion of China and Russia has made it difficult for the in-
ternational community to prevent Iran from developing
'- FIGURE8·4 GROWTHIN UN MEMBERSHIPUNmembershiphas nuclear weapons.
increased from 51 to 193.
Because it must rely on individual countries to sup-
160' ply troops, the UN often lacks enough of them to keep
peace effectively. The UN tries to maintain strict neutral-
ity in separating warring factions, but this has proved
difficult in places such as Bosnia & Herzegovina, where
most of the world sees two ethnicities (Bosnia's Serbs and
Croats) as aggressors undertaking ethnic cleansing against
weaker victims (Bosnian Muslims). Despite its shortcom-
ings, though, the UN represents a forum where, for the
first time in history, virtually all states of the world can
meet and vote on issues without resorting to war.

Pause and Reflect 8.1.1

How might UN membership substantially
,eo, increase in the future beyond the current level?

---40'

\ 70'

PA'CIFIC
OCEAN

20' 40' 60' 80' 100' 120' l

160'

264 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Challenges in Defining States Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) as separate
and sovereign states. According to China's government
Learning Outcome 8.1.2 Taiwan is not sovereign but a part of China. This confusin~
situation arose from a civil war in China during the late
Explain why it is difficult to determine whether some 1940s between the Nationalists and the Communists. After
territories are states. losing in 1949, Nationalist leaders, including President
Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan, 200 kilometers (120
There is some disagreement about the actual number of miles) off the Chinese coast (Figure 8-6).
sovereign states. This disagreement is closely tied to the
history and geography of the places involved and most The Nationalists proclaimed that they were still the legit-
often involves neighboring states. In some disputes about imate rulers of the entire country of China. Until some fu-
sovereignty, multiple states lay claim to a territory. Among ture occasion when they could defeat the Communists and
places that test the definition of a state are Korea, China, recapture all of China, the Nationalists argued, at least they
Kosovo, Western Sahara (Sahrawi Republic), and the polar could continue to govern one island of the country. In 1999
regions of Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean. Taiwan's president announced that Taiwan would regard it-
self as a sovereign independent state, but the government of
KOREA: ONE STATE OR TWO? China viewed that announcement as a dangerous departure
from the long-standing arrangement between the two.
A colony of Japan for many years, Korea was divided
into two occupation zones by the United States and the The question of who constituted the legitimate govern-
former Soviet Union after they defeated Japan in World ment of China plagued U.S. officials during the 1950s and
War II (Figure 8-5). The country was divided into northern 1960s. The United States had supported the Nationalists
and southern sections along 38° north latitude. The divi- during the civil war, so many Americans opposed acknowl-
sion of these zones became permanent in the late 1940s, edging that China was firmly under the control of the
when the two superpowers established separate govern- Communists. Consequently, the United States continued
ments and withdrew their armies. The new government of to regard the Nationalists as the official government of
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) China until 1971, when U.S. policy finally changed and
then invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in 1950, the United Nations voted to transfer China's seat horn the
touching off a three-year war that ended with a cease-fire Nationalists to the Communists. Taiwan is now the most
line near the 38th parallel. populous state not in the United Nations.

Both Korean governments are committed to reuniting
the country into one sovereign state. Leaders of the two
countries agreed in 2000 to allow exchange visits of families
separated for a half century by the division and to increase
economic cooperation. However, progress toward reconcili-
ation was halted by North Korea's decision to build nuclear

weapons, even though the
country lacked the ability
to provide its citizens with
food, electricity, and other
basic needs. Meanwhile,
in 1992, North Korea and
South Korea were admit-
ted to the United Nations
as separate countries.

.._FIGURE8-5 NORTH AND SOUTH CHINA AND • FIGURE8-6 TAIWAN Taiwaneswe aveflagsat ChiangKai-sheMk emori,
TAIWAN: ONE HallinTaipeiT, aiwanT. hehallis namedforthe last Nationalisptresidentc
KOREA Anighttimesatelliteimage STATE OR TWO? mainlandChina.
recordedbythe U.SA. irForceDefense
MeteorologicSaal telliteProgramshows Are China and the island
the illuminatioonfelectriclightsin of Taiwan two sovereign
SouthKoreaw, hereasNorthKoreahas states or one? Most other
virtuallynoelectriclightsa, measure countries consider China
ofitspovertyandlimitedeconomic (officially the People's
activity. Republic of China) and

120'¥1 Chapter 8: Political Geography 265

90'W

PACIFIC
OCEAN

A FIGURE8-7 WESTERN SAHARA Moroccobuilt sandwalls during the
1980sto isolatePolisarioFrontrebelsfightingfor independence.

WESTERN SAHARA (SAHRAWI REPUBLIC) NORWAY

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, also known as AUSTRALIA
Western Sahara, is considered by most African countries as
a sovereign state. Morocco, however, claims the territory IND/AN
and to prove it has built a 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) o 250 500 Miles\ OCEAN
wall around the territory to keep out rebels (Figure 8-7). OO"EO 250 500KJlometers llO,'E

Spain controlled the territory on the continent's west A FIGURE8-8 NATIONAL CLAIMS TO ANTARCTICA Antarcticais
coast between Morocco and Mauritania until withdrawing the only largelandmassin the world that is not part of a sovereignstate.It
in 1976. An independent Sabrawi Republic was declared by comprises14 millionsquarekilometers(5.4 millionsquaremiles),whichmakes
the Polisario Front and recognized by most Africancountries, it 50percentlargerthanCanadaP. ortionsareclaimedbyArgentinaA, ustralia,
but Morocco and Mauritania annexed the northern and Chile,FranceN, ewZealandN, orwaya, ndthe UnitedKingdomc; laimsby
southern portions, respectively. Three years later Mauritania Argentina,Chile,and theUnitedKingdomareconflicting.
withdrew, and Morocco claimed the entire territory.

Morocco controls most of the populated area, but the
Polisario Front operates in the vast, sparsely inhabited des-
erts, especially the one-fifth of the territory that lies east of
Morocco's wall. The United Nations has tried but failed to
reach a resolution among the parties.

POLAR REGIONS: MANY CLAIMS PACIFIC Claim Disputedclaim
OCEAN Canada
The South Pole region contains the only large landmasses
on Earth's surface that are not part of a state. Several states Norway
claim portions of the region, and some claims are overlap- Russia
ping and conflicting. United
States
Several states, including Argentina, Australia, Chile, Unclaimeadreas
France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom, • Internawl aters
claim portions of Antarctica (Figure 8-8). Argentina, Chile,
and the United Kingdom have made conflicting, overlap- 0 z;o 500~11e•
ping claims. The United States, Russia, and a number of 0 250 SOCMOIOtnfflts
other states do not recognize the claims of any country to
Antarctica. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959 by 47 states, ATLANTIC OCEAN
provides a legal framework for managing Antarctica. States
may establish research stations there for scientific investi- A FIGURE8-9 NATIONAL CLAIMS TO THE ARCTIC Underthe Lawof the
gations, but no military activities are permitted. SeaTreatyof 1982,countrieshad until 2009to submitclaimsto territoryinside
theArcticCircle.Someof theseclaimsoverlap.
As for the Arctic, the 1982 United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea permitted countries to submit claims
inside the Arctic Circle by 2009 (Figure 8-9). The Arctic re-
gion is thought to be rich in energy resources.

Pa.useand Reflect8.1.2

The polar icecapsare recedingwith the warming of
Earth. How might this affect competingterritorial
claims?

268 THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE SWEDEN

KEY ISSUE 2

Why Are Nation-states

Difficult to Create? N

■ Nation-states and Multinational Greenland fo so~,&;_,?.O,,,.._
States Sea

■ Colonies Norwegian "..,.SWEDEl~f,'~<P<¼'u'<> I
Sea
Learning Outcome 8.2.1 'ORWA"Y
Understand the difference between a nation-state
and a multinational state. ( I·V: ~LA~ND

There is no such thing as a perfect nation-state because ~l!~NO Faroe Is'. DENM~RK ' .
the territory occupied by a particular ethnicity never cor- (OEN1
responds precisely to the boundaries of countries: North ·•
• In some multinational states, ethnicities coexist peace-
ATLANTIC OCEAN \•' .I Sea N~~• ERMANY
fully, while remaining culturally distinct. Each ethnic
group recognizes and respects the distinctive traditions a ~a soo·Mlk5 i -~' 1 ~ ~
of other ethnicities. 1
• In some multinational states, one ethnicity tries to dom- 0 250 500IO!ome<m ., UNITED "'"
inate another, especially if one is much more numerous KllfGOON'I
than the others. The people of the less numerous eth-
nicity may be assimilated into the cultural characteris- IA!:iAND ,. FRANCE
tics of the other, sometimes by force.
A FIGURE 8-14 DENMARK AND GREENLAND Greenland'osfficiallanguage
Nation-states and is nowGreenlandica,nInuitlanguageG. reenlandisnowofficiallyknownas
Multinational States KalaaltitNunaata, ndthe capitalcitywaschangedfromGodthaabto Nuuk.

A state that contains more than one ethnicity is a mul- and attitudes and a recorded history that extends back
tiethnic state. Because no state has a population that is more than 1,000 years. Nearly all Danes speak the same
100 percent of a single ethnicity, every state in the world is language-Danish-and nearly all the world's speakers of
to a varying degree multiethnic. In some multiethnic states, Danish live in Denmark.
ethnicities all contribute cultural features to the formation
of a single nationality. The United States has numerous However, 10 percent of Denmark's population con-
ethnic groups, for example, all of which consider them- sists of ethnic minorities. The two largest groups are guest
selves as belonging to the American nationality. workers from Turkey and refugees from ethnic cleansing
in the former Yugoslavia. Further diluting the concept of
A multinational state is a country that contains more a nation-state, Denmark controls two territories where few
than one ethnicity with traditions of self-determination. ethnic Danes live (Figure 8-14):
The Soviet Union was an especially prominent example of
a multinational state until its collapse in the early 1990s. • Faeroe Islands, a group of 21 islands, has been ruled by
Russia, which comprised the largest portion of the Soviet Denmark for more than 600 years. The nearly 50,000
Union, is now the world's largest multinational state. Re- inhabitants of the Faeroe Islands speak Faeroese.
lationships among ethnicities vary in multinational states.
• Greenland, the world's largest island, is controlled by
NATION-STATES IN EUROPE Denmark. Only 12 percent of Greenland's 58,000 resi-
dents are considered Danish; the remainder are native-
Two relatively clear examples of nation-states are Denmark born Green landers, primarily Inuit. Greenlanders control
and Slovenia, yet even these two are not perfect examples. most of their own domestic affairs.

DENMARK. NinetypercentofthepopulationofDenmark SLOVENIA. Slovenia was a republic within Yugoslavia
consists of ethnic Danes. The Danes have a strong sense that became an independent country in 1991 (Figure 8-15),
of unity that derives from shared cultural characteristics Slovenes comprise 83 percent of the population of Slovenia,
and nearly all the world's 2 million Slovenes live in
Slovenia. The relatively close coincidence between the
boundaries of the Slovene ethnic group and the country
of Slovenia has promoted the country's relative peace and
stability, compared to other former Yugoslavian republics,

as discussed in Chapter 7.
A census in 1948 showed that Slovenes comprisec

97 percent of Slovenia's population. The percentage has de•
dined steadily since then. When it was part of Yugoslavia
Slovenia was the most prosperous republic, and it attractec
migrants from other republics. Many of them remained ir

15 30MMe, AUSTRIA Chapter 8: Political Geography 269
O j5 30kilo!Mtorg
countries. The role of organized religion was minimized,
CROATIA suppressing a cultural force that competed with the gov-
ernment (Figure 8-16).
Percent.ethnicity
olher than Slovene: The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia
were dismantled largely because minority ethnicities op-
10 andabove posed the long-standing dominance of the most numer-
3-9 ous ones in each country-Russians in the Soviet Union,
N Below3 Serbs in Yugoslavia, and Czechs in Czechoslovakia. The
dominance was pervasive, inducting economic, political,
A FIGURE8-15 SLOVENIAThepercentagoef ethnicitiesotherthanSlovene and cultural institutions. No longer content to control a
ishigherin localitiesborderi~gneighborincgountriese,speciallHy ungaraynd province or some other local government unit, ethnici-
Italy. ties sought to be the majority in completely independent
nation-states. Republics that once constituted local gov-
Slovenia after the country became independent. Slovenia's ernment units within the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and
90-member National Assembly reserves one seat each for Czechoslovakia generally made peaceful transitions into
Hungarian and Italian ethnic groups living in Slovenia. independent countries-as long as their boundaries corre-
The province of Italy bordering Slovenia has a population sponded reasonably well with the territory occupied by a
that is approximately one-fifth Slovene. Boundary changes clearly defined ethnicity.
after World War II resulted in a number of Slovenes living
in Italy and Italians living in Slovenia.

Pause and Reflect 8.2.1

Referring to Figure 7-40, where do the boundaries
of Slovenia not match language boundaries?

NATION-STATES AND ETHNIC IDENTITY. Europeans "- FIGURE8-16 COMMUNISTART AftertheCommunistosokover
thought that ethnicity had been left behind as an Czechoslovakinia1948,theyalteredthissixteenth-centucrlyockin thecityof
insignificant relic, such as wearing quaint costumes to Olomoucto conformto socialisrtealismart.Becausteheydiscouragerdeligion,
amuse tourists. Karl Marx wrote that nationalism was a theCommunistrsemovedthestatuesof the 12apostlesandreplacedthem
means for the dominant social classes to maintain power with statuesof workers.
over workers, and he believed that workers would identify
with other working-class people instead of with an ethnicity.

In the twenty-first century, ethnic identity has once
again become important in the creation of nation-states
in much of Europe. The breakup of the Soviet Union,
Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia during the l 990s gave
more-numerous ethnicities the opportunity to organize
nation-states. But the less-numerous ethnicities found
themselves existing as minorities in multinational states or
divided among more than one of the new states. Especially
severe problems have occurred in the Balkans, a rugged,
mountainous region where nation-states could not be de-
lineated peacefully.

Until they lost power .around 1990, Communist lead-
ers in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union used
centripetal forces to discourage ethnicities from express-

ing their cultural uniqueness. Writers and artists were pres-
sured to conform to a style known as "socialist realism,"
which emphasized Communist economic and political
values. Use of the Russian language was promoted as a cen-

tripetal device throughout the former Soviet Union. It was
taught as the second language in other Eastern European