Cultural and Political Geography Study Notes

Culture

Culture is the total way of life of a group of people: religion, language, architecture, cuisine, technology, music, dress, law, economy and more.
Culture region: a part of the Earth with common cultural elements. Islamic region (North Africa and Southwest Asia) is exceedingly large, Spanish Harlem in Manhattan very small, the Corn Belt of the mid-western USA intermediate.
Cultural diffusion: spread of cultural beliefs and social activities from one group to another.
Cultural landscape: defined by the World Heritage Committee as the combined works of nature and of man. Three categories: designed by man; organically evolved (relict or continuing); associative.
Norms are shared expectations; values are ideas of what is good, right, fair and just. Conflict theory stresses how values differ between groups; functionalism stresses shared values.
Cultural heritage is tangible or intangible: built environment, natural environment and artefacts.
Cultural traits are objects, techniques, beliefs or attitudes; together they form a culture complex.

Realm	Key points
Occidental	European culture shaped by Christianity; six sub-regions: West European, Continental, Mediterranean, Anglo-American, Australian, Latin American (only one in the tropics)
Islamic	Morocco to Pakistan; called Middle-East by the British, oriental by Germans
Indie	Baker: sub-continental culture; D. Stamp: paddy culture; Vedic values
East Asian	Buddhist; true form in South Korea and Japan
South-East Asian	Transitional: Buddhism in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam; Christianity in the Philippines; Islam in Malaysia
Meso-African	Negro culture of tropical Africa; Toynbee's marginalised culture

Race	Features	Home
Negroid	Darkest skin, sloped forehead, wide nose; Rh(D) high	Sub-Saharan Africa
Mongoloid	Folded eyelids, yellowish skin, least body hair; blood group B high	East Asia
Caucasoid	White people, pointy nose; more A than B	Europe and Middle East
Australoid	Visible eye ridge, curly hair, short	Australia, Papua New Guinea

Monotheistic (Islam, Christianity) and polytheistic (Hinduism).
Universalizing: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism. Ethnic: Hinduism, Shintoism, Chinese faiths, Judaism. Tribal: animism, shamanism.
Christianity has the most followers; Islam is second (Shia and Sunni). Judaism is the oldest monotheistic faith. Buddhism has Hinayana and Mahayana. Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak in the 15th century.

About 300 million indigenous people, about 4% of the world, in more than sixty countries. Tribal people are called the fourth world: the people belong to the land.
Equatorial forest: Pigmy, Semang, Sakai. Grasslands: Masai, Kyrghiz. Tropical deserts: Bedouin, Bushman, Aborigines. Mountains: Bhotia, Gujjar, Naga. Monsoon: Gonds, Santhals, Todas, Bhils. Arctic: Eskimo, Lapp, Alute, Chukchi.
Pigmies (Negrillos) are about 150 cm tall, in the Congo basin. Masai of East Africa are the best cattle herders. Bedouin means desert dwellers. Bushman live in the Kalahari. Eskimos (Inuits) live in igloos, hunt by Maupak and use sledges.
India has more than 84.4 million tribal people, the largest in the world. Bhils: bow men of Rajasthan. Santhals: third largest tribe. Munda means village headman. Khasi: Meghalaya. Angami: Nagaland, Sekrenyi festival. Bhutia: Sikkim, Losar and Losoong. Chenchu: Nallamalai hills. Sentinelese: North Sentinel Island.
Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris): Todas (buffaloes, Munds), Badagas (backward class, not tribal), Kotas (musicians, smiths), Kurumbas (own language), Irulas (second largest after Badagas, snake venom), Paliyans (Palani hills).

India (780) has the second highest number of languages after Papua New Guinea (839).
G.L. Trage: 7 linguistic phylum and 30 families.
India: 22 scheduled languages; 14 at first; Sindhi 1967 (21st Amendment); Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali 1992 (71st); Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santali 2003 (92nd).
Four families: Austric, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Indo-Aryan. Brahui is the Dravidian language written in Arabic script.
UNESCO risk levels: safe, vulnerable (600), definitely endangered (646), severely endangered (527), critically endangered (577). One language dies every 14 days.
Dialects are geographic or social.

Nation: people bound by shared culture or history, an imagined community. State: independent, sovereign, bounded and recognised. Vaishali was the world's first republic.
Frontier: natural, areal, dynamic. Boundary: man-made, linear, static, often disputed.
Genetic classification: antecedent (North Africa, US states), subsequent (Europe), superimposed (Pakistan occupied Kashmir), relict (Persia, East-West Germany).

Mackinder (1904): Heartland, Inner or Marginal Crescent, Outer or Insular Crescent. Eastern Europe is the only gateway to the Heartland.
Multipolar forces reform the UN, IMF and World Bank and create the BRICS New Development Bank and SCO. BRICS-Plus links regional groups.
China's trade depends on chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca and Suez Canal; its OBOR (New Silk Road) vision aims at a multipolar order.