Chapter 1 Objectives and Tools of World Regional Geography

BF.Resources and Development

BG.Switzerland

BH.Austria

Europe’s core region comprises the countries of Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the microstates of Monaco, Andorra and Liechtenstein. The European core land is defined as a major cluster of continuous settlement.

The United Kingdom (Great Britain) is composed of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Physically the country can be divided into “Highland Britain” to the northwest and “Lowland Britain” to the southeast. For the century preceding World War I, the U.K. was the world’s strongest country. The Industrial Revolution began here, with coal mining, iron and steel, cotton and woolen textiles, and shipbuilding of primary importance. While Britain today remains an important manufacturing nation, the effects of two world wars and the loss of its colonial empire hurt the nation economically. Today the U.K. is in the process of deindustrialization, though North Sea oil revenues are also important. The United Kingdom was the first urbanized country, and London has long been one of the world’s foremost cities. Outbreaks of “mad cow disease” have badly hurt Britain’s beef industry.

Ireland was one of the lesser-developed European nations for many years, but recently has experienced an economic boom led by high-tech industries. Many Irish died or emigrated during the devastating potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century. Upon Ireland’s independence, the northern part of the country elected to remain with Britain. This partition led to an often-violent struggle between Irish Catholics and the Protestants in control of the area, a situation that despite some promising advances remains unresolved.

France, a historic enemy of the United Kingdom but now linked to it via the Channel Tunnel, is Europe’s largest country in area and its largest agricultural producer. Though the country is mostly urban, many French still see themselves as an agricultural people, and the family farm plays an important role in French self-identity. France has superior topographic, climatic, and soil conditions for agriculture. France began an intensive process of industrialization and modernization after World War II, and is now the fourth most industrially productive nation in the world. Much of that economic activity takes place around Paris, the largest city in Europe and France’s primate city. France is a generous welfare state, but its sluggish economy and aging population has made these benefits hard to maintain. France also has a large and growing Muslim population in its cities.

After World War II, East Germany became a Soviet satellite while West Germany was rebuilt with American aid. The two countries were reunited in 1990. The costs to West Germany of re-absorbing the former Communist East have been great. The standard of living in the east remains much lower than in the west, and the east suffers from severe environmental damage. Like France, Germany is a welfare state with an economy that has been struggling for several years. Nonetheless Germany is a major world industrial power, with clusters of manufacturing cities located across the country. No one city or area dominates the country, although the Rhine and Ruhr river region is quite important. Germany has the largest population of any European nation, and it has been one of the largest recipients of foreign immigration to Europe, especially from Turkey.

Collectively known as “Benelux” or the Low Countries, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg have intensive and interrelated development of industry, agriculture, and trade. Large areas of land near the coast are below sea level, and some land in the Netherlands is polder land, that is land formerly below sea level and made dry by canals, dikes, and pump systems. Amsterdam became an important financial center, and Rotterdam is the world’s largest port, benefiting from its location on the Rhine River. Brussels is the headquarters of the European Union. Luxembourg has the world’s highest GDP-PPP.

Austria is a remnant of a large central European empire. Austrians are essentially German in language and culture, but Austria has historically lagged behind Germany and the rest of Western Europe in economic development. A higher percentage of its population is engaged in agriculture as compared to other European core nations.

Switzerland is a classic buffer state between stronger powers. It has a policy of strict and heavily armed neutrality; it stayed out of both world wars and refused to join the EU. The country’s location high in the Alps has made it a magnet for tourism, and the relative lack of natural resources has encouraged industries to create efficient, high-skill products. Banking is also very important to the Swiss economy. Switzerland is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society, with a relatively weak central government; most authority is in the hands of the 26 sub-national units.

Key Terms and Concepts

28. 
    The European Core consists of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and the microstates of Andorra, Liechtenstein, and Monaco. These countries have long played dominant roles in Europe’s political, economic, and cultural development. They also share a number of traits: they have the densest, most urbanized populations; the lowest unemployment; the most productive agriculture; the most conservative politics; the greatest concentration of roads and railways; and the highest overall levels of crowding, congestion, and pollution in Europe. [pp. 96-98]
    

29. 
    Most of the largest cities of Great Britain, with the notable exception of London, are located on or near the coalfields that provided the energy for early industrial growth. The urban concentration in northern France, centered on Lille, and the smaller industrial cities across the border in Belgium also developed along a major coalfield. And most of western Germany’s major industrial cities, especially in the Ruhr region and southward, also grew tremendously during the Industrial Revolution by being located on Europe’s largest coalfield. Some large Core cities – notably London, Paris, Lyon, Berlin, and others – grew not because of their proximity to coalfields but because of their central locations or easy access to important transportation routes. [pp. 97-101, 110, 113]
    

30. 
    The five industries that were of major importance to the industrial rise of Great Britain were coal mining, iron and steel manufacturing, cotton textiles, woolen textiles, and shipbuilding. Coal mining began declining in Britain after World War I, and almost all of the country’s coal export trade has since disappeared; coal today is mainly used for creating electricity. Britain still produces steel, but lost its position as the world’s leading producer before 1900, and today produces only a fraction of the world’s total steel output. British exports of cotton and woolen textiles peaked around World War I and then began to decline. Cotton textiles declined much more precipitously than woolen textile exports, in which the country remains important. Shipbuilding also declined during the latter half of the twentieth century, but experienced a rebound after 2000 from new defense contracts. [pp. 101-102]
    

31. 
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Ireland was once a British colony but achieved independence in 1921. In recent years Scotland has achieved a great deal of autonomy within Great Britain, and Wales has also begun demanding a greater measure of self-rule. Wales was an independent kingdom until the Middle Ages when it was united with England; and England (along with Wales) and Scotland were merged into one kingdom in 1707, a century after a Scottish king inherited the English throne. [pp. 98-99]
    

32. 
    “The Troubles” of Northern Ireland is a decades-long struggle, oftentimes violent, between the Catholic Republicans and the Protestant Unionists. Protestant settlers from England and Scotland settled in Northern Ireland when Ireland was a British colony, and Protestants eventually outnumbered Irish Catholics in the region. When Ireland was granted independence in 1921, Northern Ireland chose to remain part of the United Kingdom. Indigenous Catholics felt marginalized by the Protestant majority and began agitating for change in the 1960s. Sectarian violence led to the British military being sent to the region; this led to the creation of the Irish Republican Army, which began a terrorist campaign of bombings and assassinations against perceived British occupation of Northern Ireland. A U.S.-brokered peace agreement was tentatively achieved in 1998, but broke down amid continuing violence several years later. [p. 106]
    

33. 
    Compared with other European countries, French agriculture is particularly strong because of several important factors. France’s overall population density is lower than many other European countries, leaving a large non-urbanized land area available for farming. Much of this land is relatively level, and is aided by a moderate climate with plentiful rainfall throughout most of the country; southern France has a warmer Mediterranean climate, ideal for vineyards and corn fields. Fine, fertile loess soils are also prevalent in the northern sections of France. France is also aided agriculturally by its membership in the European Union, which gives French products a large, relatively affluent market free of tariffs and other agricultural restrictions. The European Union also provides generous agricultural price supports, with French farmers being the lead beneficiaries. [pp. 108-109]
    

34. 
    A primate city is a city in a country that is larger than the second- and third-largest cities in that country combined. A primate city usually dominates a country culturally, economically, demographically, and politically. Paris is the best example of a primate city in Europe, but primate cities tend to be rarer in more developed countries than in less developed countries. Cairo, Karachi, and Mexico City are all good examples of primate cities in LDCs. [p. 111]
    

35. 
    Prosperous West Germany and poorer East Germany reunited in 1990. East Germany had been much poorer than West Germany, and the costs of bringing the former Communist nation up to the living standards of the west, as well as cleaning up the severe environmental damage done to the nation, were largely shouldered by West Germans. This process is still not complete, and unemployment remains much higher and standards of living lower in the east than in the west. Germany is a generous welfare state, so the expenses of subsidizing all its citizens have mounted rapidly since reunification. This has led to an economic slowdown – economic growth in Germany was the smallest of all the EU member states – that is spurring a movement away from the welfare state to one where citizens must pay more for health care and other governmental services. [p. 114]
    

36. 
    Rotterdam’s port is the busiest in the world thanks to its location on the Rhine River. Rotterdam handles an enormous amount of the river’s trade, both in receiving goods by sea for transport inland and products from downstream (and from Germany’s industrial Ruhr region) being shipped out. [pp. 115-116]
    

37. 
    Switzerland’s peaceful history is contrasted with Austria’s war-torn one mainly from Switzerland’s location as a mountainous buffer state between greater European powers. Switzerland has acted as an intermediary between warring nations, and as a refuge. Austria was the seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that collapsed after World War I, and was then absorbed into Nazi Germany several decades later. Austria is more mineral-rich than Switzerland, but has remained poorer and more agricultural; Switzerland’s historic neutrality and stability has allowed its economy to expand and diversify, while Austria’s location and turbulent history has kept that nation one of the less economically successful Western European nations. [pp. 117-119]
    

38. 
    Switzerland has not joined the European Union partly because it fears being a “small fish in a big pond” and its special economic interests, such as banking and farming, might lose their privileges within the EU. Switzerland also has a history of limited central government, with its internal divisions largely responsible for their own lawmaking; many important pieces of legislation are brought directly to the people for a vote. These political traditions have also contributed to Swiss resistance to the idea of being subjected to a supranational organization’s laws and regulations. [p. 118]
    

39. 
    The microstates of the European core often have very specialized economies supporting their very small populations. Liechtenstein prospers from the financial industry and the production of false teeth. Monaco relies heavily upon gambling and recreation from tourists for its income. Andorra also relies mainly upon tourism, from its location high in the Pyrenees. [pp. 107, 111, 118]
    

40. 
    Great Britain is the largest island off the European coast. Much of it is lowland, but parts of Wales and Scotland are rugged with low mountains. Most of western and northern France is situated on the North European Plain. Eastern France has uplands and mountainous areas stretching along its borders with Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The high Pyrenees Mountains form the country’s southern border with Spain. Another highland area, the Massif Central, stretches over much of south-central France. The North European Plain takes up the northern half of Germany’s area, with upland areas in the south. Mountains form the German borders with Belgium and the Czech Republic, and the Alps extend into Germany’s far south. [pp. 99-101, 107-108, 112-113]
    

This module should enable your students to…

• 
  Recognize the geographic, economic, and political factors that have kept these subregions secondary to the European core in power and influence
  
• 
  Appreciate the benefits and drawbacks that people realize from different political and economic systems, including the welfare state and collectivization
  
• 
  Recognize the impacts of the wars and their aftermath on the political geographies of the region
  
• 
  Observe the trend toward greater unity under the European Union and NATO and the concurrent trend of devolution of power from central governments to provinces
  
• 
  Relate the often troubled histories of ethnic minorities in Europe and how aims of ethnic peoples have led to war, terrorism, and the redrawing of national boundaries
  
• 
  See that some of the environmental obstacles to development (mountains, dry lands, and ice, for example) are also potential tourist assets that may promote development
  

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