Geographic Sadness

I have a fascination with geography. Growing up I loved looking at maps - and luckily had plenty to pore over in my house. In recent years I’ve gone digital, and often find myself just staring at Google Maps for hours on end.

A big part of geography is the political boundaries that we’ve created. Some of them make sense, some of them are bizarre, and some are just plain sad.

1. Split States

During the Civil War, part of Virginia broke off and formed a new state called West Virginia. They deliberately choose to keep the name Virginia though - instead of, for example, calling themselves Appalachia. Now that the Civil War is long over, why can’t West Virginia rejoin Virginia? For that matter, why can’t we just have Carolina and Dakota? We are supposed to be the United States, and having divided states seems a bit antithetical to our purpose.

2. States Split by Country

The US state of California, along with the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur make up approximately what used to be The Californias in colonial Mexico. It’s easy to see why this is considered one region, yet today it is split between the United States and Mexico and has no hope of being united again.

3. Divided Islands

I can understand why continents are divided into countries - they are just too big to for a single society to take shape in. However, it makes absolutely no sense why small islands are divided. When I look at islands like Hispaniola and New Guinea, it truly makes wonder how they got to be this way and if it would ever be possible (or desirable) for having one unified society on the island.

4. Divided Countries

Nothing is more sad then divided countries. China and Taiwan, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and North and South Korea come to mind. Immense amounts of suffering, war, and unresolved issues have separated people and families along political borders. I remain hopeful that someday these countries will be peacefully reunited.

5. Landlocked Countries

Unmitigated access to the oceans and thus the global economy is extremely important. While it’s true that a few countries (and mainly the United States) control the seas, it’s still preferable to have access to a coastline than not. Perhaps drones, distributed manufacturing, or space travel will change the disadvantage landlocked countries face, but for now it remains. While being landlocked isn’t a problem for Switzerland, there are many landlocked countries, particularly in Africa, who are forced to rely on neighboring countries that aren’t as well off as say France. Paul Collier, in his book The Bottom Billion has written about how this reliance on neighboring countries with poor governance and infrastructure dooms many landlocked countries.

6. Doubly Landlocked Countries

If there is one thing worse than being landlocked, it’s being DOUBLY landlocked. This is when a country only shares borders with other landlocked countries, and is thus forced to go through two countries to access the global economy. Thankfully there are only two doubly landlocked countries: (Uzbekistan and Litchenstein)

7. People Divided by Political Boundaries

While it was overall a good thing when India gained independence from the UK, the partitioning of India was tragic. Many died, and millions of people who once lived together more or less in one society split along religious lines forming modern day Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. The tension and hostility between these countries over the ensuing decades has been lamentable to say the least. You can’t redo the past, but this seems like a disastrous situation that could have been avoided.

8. Intractable Land Issues

There isn’t much more I can say about the Israeli/Palestinian land dispute issues that hasn’t already been said. Over the past few weeks this has broken out into an all out war, and lots of people are dead. Unresolved land disputes like this are dangerous and need to be resolved - but this is the area that I’m least hopeful about.

9. Non-Contiguous Countries

I went to Malaysia a few years ago, and learned that about half the country was on the Malay Peninsula, while the other half was on the Island of Borneo. Now there are plenty of countries that have non-contiguous land masses (including the United States), but this takes it to a whole new level. It must be hard to administer island nations like The Philippines, Indonesia, or the Solomon Islands.

10. Enclaves and Exclaves

Lesotho pops to mind as the classic example of an enclave. They are one of only three countries in the world completely surrounded by one country (in this case South Africa). This puts them completely at the mercy of South Africa - making me wonder how the country was formed in the first place, and how it’s managed to survive despite the harsh past of the Apartheid South African government. Also, exclaves such as Kaliningrad strike me as bizarre. How is there a piece of Russia in the middle of Europe bordered by two NATO countries?