(Redirected from Regions)
'Region' is a
geographic term that is used in various ways among the different branches of geography. In general, a region medium-scale area of land or water, smaller than the whole areas of interest (which could be, for example, the world, a nation, a river basin, mountain range, and so on), and larger than a specific site or location. A region can be seen as a collection of smaller units (as in "the New England states") or as one part of a larger whole (as in "the New England region of the United States").
Regions are areas and or the spaces used in the study of geography. A region can be defined by physical characteristics, human characteristics and functional characteristics.
As a way of describing spatial areas, the concept of regions is important and widely used among the many branches of geography, each of which can describe areas in regional terms. For example,
ecoregion is a term used in
environmental geography,
cultural region in
cultural geography,
bioregion in
Biogeography, and so on. The field of geography that studies regions themselves is called
Regional geography.
Regions are conceptual constructs and, thus, may vary among cultures and individuals.
Natural regions
In the fields of
physical geography,
ecology,
biogeography,
zoogeography, and
environmental geography, regions tend to be based on natural features such as
ecosystems or
biotopes,
biomes,
drainage basins,
mountain ranges,
soil types, and so on.
Ecoregions
Many systems of delineating
ecoregions have been created. The
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has been active in creating one of the more recent and comprehensive systems. In this system, ecoregions are part of a nested hierarchy of ecological regions of different scales. Small units are called sites, micro-
ecosystems, landtypes, and land units, among other terms. Small units are grouped into larger units called landscape mosaics, meso-ecosystems, landtype associations, and subregions, among other terms. These in turn are grouped into larger units called variously regions, ecoregions, provinces, divisions, domains, zones,
ecozones, kingdoms, and so on.
Hydrological regions
The fields of
hydrology and
hydrography involve the study and description of water in the environment.
Surface-water hydrology focuses on streams, lakes, wetlands, and other kinds of
surface water (as opposed to
groundwater). Hydrology is a broad field with many topics of study, including the delineation of water-based regions.
There are many systems for defining surface water regions. A basic type of stream-based region is the
drainage basin, or watershed. In some cases, drainage basins are directly linked to cultural and political regions. For example, the
Hudson Bay drainage basin was defined politically as
Rupert's Land, the historic territory of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Boundaries between drainage basins, called
water divides, are frequently used as political boundaries.
Hydrologic Units
The drainage basin concept is expanded upon in hierarchical systems of ''hydrologic units''. In the United States, an effort is being made to delineate hydrologic units in a six level hierarchy covering the entire country and adhering to a standard called the "Federal Standard for Delineation of Hydrologic Unit Boundaries". The six nested levels of hydrologic unit regions are named, from largest to smallest, regions, subregions, basins, subbasins, watersheds, and subwatersheds. The system defines 21 hydrologic unit (HU) regions in the United States, 222 HU subregions, 352 HU basins, and 2,149 HU subbasins. The delineation of 5th level watersheds and 6th level subwatersheds is not complete, but estimates predict about 22,000 watersheds and 160,000 subwatersheds in the United States.
All of these HU regions are given a numeric ID and a name. An example of the names and nesting hierarchy is:
★ Region: Pacific Northwest Hydrologic Region (ID 17)
★ Subregion: Lower Snake Subregion (ID 1706; size 35,200 square miles)
★ Basin: Lower Snake Basin (ID 170601; size 11,800 square miles)
★ Subbasin: Imnaha Subbasin (ID 17060102; size 855 square miles)
★ Watershed: not yet delineated, but there are 5-15 watersheds per subbasin
★ Subwatershed: not yet delineated, but there are 5-15 subwatersheds per watershed
Groundwater regions
Groundwater-based regions include
aquifers. While aquifers are hydrographic regions in their own right, in some cases they are closely related to social, cultural, economic and land-use regions. Examples of such aquifers include the
Ogallala Aquifer, which supports a vast region of irrigated farmland in the
Great Plains; the
Edwards Aquifer of
Central Texas; the
Guaraní Aquifer of central South America, including the
Triple Frontier region; and the
Great Artesian Basin, which is made up of several aquifers and provides water for inland eastern Australian regions such as the
Murray-Darling Basin.junaid
Physiographic regions
Regions defined based on landform characteristics are called "physiographic" or "geomorphic" regions. Physiography involves the delineation and description of regions from the viewpoint of
geomorphology. Geologist Nevin Fenneman defined a classic three-level hierarchical system of physiographic regions for the United States in 1946. The regions are called divisions, provinces, and sections. For example, there are 8 large
physiographic divisions, such as the
Canadian Shield and the
Interior Plains. These are subdivided into provinces and sections. The Appalachian Highlands division, for example, contains the Valley and Ridge province, which in turn contains three sections, the Tennessee section, Middle section, and Hudson section. The Valley and Ridge province approximately corresponds to the more general region known as the
Ridge-and-valley Appalachians.
Palaeogeographic regions
Palaeogeography is the study of ancient geologic environments. Since the physical structures of the Earth's surface have changed over geologic time, palaeogeographers have coined various names for ancient regions that no longer exist, from very large regions such as the supercontinents
Rodinia,
Pangaea, and
Pannotia, to relatively small regions like
Beringia. Other examples include the
Tethys Ocean and
Ancylus Lake. Palaeogeographic continental regions that include
Laurentia,
Proto-Laurasia,
Laurasia,
Euramerica (the "Old Red Continent"), and
Gondwana.
Historical regions
The field of
historical geography involves the study of human history as it relates to places and regions, or, inversely, the study of how places and regions have changed over time.
D.W. Meinig, a historical geographer of America, describes many historical regions in his book ''The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History''. For example, in identifying European "source regions" in early American colonization efforts, he defines and describes the "Northwest European Atlantic Protestant Region", which includes sub-regions such as the "Western Channel Community", which itself is made of sub-regions such as the "
English West Country" of
Cornwall and
Devon.
In describing historic regions of America, Meinig writes of "The Great Fishery" off the coast of Newfoundland and New England, an oceanic region that includes the
Grand Banks. He rejects regions traditionally used in describing American history, like
New France, "West Indies", the
Middle Colonies, and the individual colonies themselves (
Province of Maryland, for example). Instead he writes of "discrete colonization areas", which may be named after colonies, but rarely adhere strictly to political boundaries. Historic regions of this type Meinig writes about include "Greater New England" and its major sub-regions of "Plymouth", "New Haven shores" (including parts of Long Island), "Rhode Island" (or "Narragansett Bay"), "the Piscataqua", "Massachusetts Bay", "Connecticut Valley", and to a lesser degree, regions in the sphere of influence of Greater New England, "Acadia" (Nova Scotia), "Newfoundland and The Fishery/The Banks".
Other examples of historical regions include Iroquoia,
Ohio Country,
Illinois Country, and
Rupert's Land.
Tourism regions
Tourism geography is the study of tourism and travel as it relates to places. Regions are studied as places of tourist origin as well as tourist destination. From the perspective of tourism geography, a regions like the
Lake District of England may receive more attention than its political region of
Cumbria, or New Zealand's
Fiordland region more than
Southland Province. For example, the policy used by the Wikitravel guide discourages the use of U.S. counties as guide subjects, in favor of geographic or metropolitan regions.
In
ecotourism, regions are often described in terms more environmental than political, such as the
Serengeti region.
Other examples of tourism regions include the
Loire Valley in France,
Cinque Terre in Italy,
Cappadocia in Turkey, and the
Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Natural resource regions
Natural resources often occur in distinct regions. Natural resource regions can be a topic of physical geography or environmental geography, but also have a strong element of human geography and economic geography. A coal region, for example, is a physical or geomorphological region, but its development and exploitation can make it into an economic and a cultural region. Some examples of natural resource regions include the
Rumaila Field, the oil field that lies along the border or Iraq and Kuwait and played a role in the
Gulf War; the
Coal Region of Pennsylvania, which is a historical region as well as a cultural, physical, and natural resource region; the
South Wales Coalfield, which like Pennsylvania's coal region is a historical, cultural, and natural region; the
Kuznetsk Basin, a similarly important coal mining region in Russia;
Kryvbas, the economic and iron ore mining region of Ukraine; and the
James Bay Project, a large region of Quebec where one of the largest hydroelectric systems in the world has been developed.
Religious regions
Sometimes a region associated with a religion is given a name, like
Christendom, a term with medieval and renaissance connotations of Christianity as a sort of social and political
polity. The term
Muslim world is sometimes used to refer to the region of the world where Islam is dominant. These broad terms are very vague when used to describe regions.
Within some religions there are clearly defined regions. The
Roman Catholic Church, the
Church of England, the
Eastern Orthodox Church, and others, define ecclesiastical regions with names such as
diocese,
eparchy,
ecclesiastical provinces, and
parish.
For example, the United States is divided into 32 Roman Catholic
ecclesiastical provinces. The
Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod is organized into 33 geographic "districts", which are subdivided into "circuits" (the
Atlantic District (LCMS), for example).
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses regions similar to dioceses and parishes, but uses terms like
ward and
stake.
Political regions
In the field of
political geography regions tend to be based on political units such as sovereign
states; subnational units such as
provinces,
counties,
townships,
territories, etc; and multinational groupings, including formally defined units such as the
European Union, the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and
NATO, as well as informally defined regions such as the
Third World,
Western Europe, and the
Middle East.
Local administrative regions
There are many relatively small regions based on local government agencies. Sometimes these small political regions are called districts or areas, and sometimes regions. In general, they are all regions in the general sense of being bounded spatial units. Examples include electorial districts such as
Washington's 6th congressional district and
Tennessee's 1st congressional district; school districts such as
Granite School District and
Los Angeles Unified School District; economic districts such as the
Reedy Creek Improvement District; metropolitan areas such as the
Seattle metropolitan area, and metropolitan districts such as the
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, the
Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, the
Metropolitan Police Service of
Greater London, as well as other local districts like the
York Rural Sanitary District, the
Delaware River Port Authority, the
Nassau County Soil and Water Conservation District, and
C-TRAN.
Administrative regions
The word "region" is taken from the
Latin ''regio'', and a number of countries have borrowed the term as the formal name for a type of
subnational entity (eg, the
''región'', used in
Chile). In
English, the word is also used as the conventional translation for equivalent terms in other languages (e.g., the
''область'' (''
oblast''), used in
Russia alongside with a broader term ''регион'').
The following countries use the term "region" (or its
cognate) as the name of a type of subnational administrative unit:
★
Belgium (in
French, ''région''; in
German, ''Region''; the
Dutch term ''gewest'' is often translated as "region")
★
Chile (''región'')
★
Congo (''région'')
★
Côte d'Ivoire (''région'')
★
Denmark (effective from 2007)
★
England
★
Eritrea
★
France (''région'')
★
Ghana
★
Guinea (''région'')
★
Guinea-Bissau (''região'')
★
Guyana
★
Hungary (''régió'')
★
Italy (''regione'')
★
Madagascar (''région'')
★
Mali (''région'')
★
Namibia
★
New Zealand
★
Peru (''región'')
★
Philippines (''region'')
★
Senegal (''région'')
★
Tanzania
★
Togo (''région'')
The
Canadian province of
Québec also uses the "administrative region" (''région administrative'').
Scotland had
local government regions from 1975 to 1996.
In Spain the official name of the
autonomous community of
Murcia is ''Región de Murcia''. Also, some single-province autonomous communities such as
Madrid use the term ''región'' interchangeably with ''comunidad autónoma''.
Two
län (counties) in
Sweden are officially called 'regions':
Skåne and
Västra Götaland, and there is currently a controversial proposal to divide the rest of Sweden into large
regions, replacing the current counties.
The government of the
Philippines uses the term "region" (in
Filipino, ''rehiyon'') when it's necessary to group provinces, the primary administrative subdivision of the country. This is also the case in
Brazil which groups its primary administrative divisions (''estados''; "states") into ''grandes regiões'' (
greater regions) for statistical purposes, while Russia uses ''экономические районы'' (
economic regions) in a similar way, as does
Romania and
Venezuela.
The
government of Singapore makes use of the term "
region" for its own administrative purposes.
The following countries use an administrative subdivision conventionally referred to as a region in English:
★
Bulgaria, which uses the ''област'' (''oblast'')
★
Russia, which uses the ''область'' (''oblast')
★
Ukraine, which uses the ''область'' (''oblast')
★
Slovakia (''kraj'')
China has five 自治区 (''zìzhìqū'') and two 特別行政區 (or 特别行政区; ''tèbiéxíngzhèngqū'') which are translated as "
autonomous region" and "
special administrative region", respectively.
Traditional or informal regions
The traditional territorial divisions of some countries are also commonly rendered in English as "regions". These informal divisions do not form the basis of the modern administrative divisions of these countries, but still define and delimit local regional identity and sense of belonging. Examples include:
★
Finland
★
Japan
★
Korea
★
Norway (''landsdeler'')
★
Romania
★
Slovakia
Geographical regions
A region can also be used for a geographical area; with this usage, there is an implied distinctiveness about the area that defines it. Such a distinction is often made on the basis of a historical, political, or cultural cohesiveness that separates the region from its neighbours.
Geographical regions can be found within a country (e.g., the
Midlands, in
England), or transnationally (e.g., the
Middle East).
Similarly, the
United Nations Statistics Division has devised
a scheme for classifying macrogeographic regions (continents), continental
subregions, and selected socioeconomic groupings.
Examples of geographical regions
★
Geographical regions in Serbia and Montenegro
★
Historical regions of Central Europe
★
Historical regions of the Balkan Peninsula
★
List of regions in Australia
★
List of regions of Canada
★
List of regions in India
★
List of regions of the United States
★
List of traditional regions of Slovakia
★
Regions of Japan
★
Regions of Turkey
★
Lists of unofficial regions by country
Military usage
In military usage a region is shorthand for the name of a military
formation larger than an
Army Group and smaller than an
Army Theater or simply Theater. The full name of the military formation is Army Region. An Army Region usually consists of between two and five Army Groups. The size of an Army Region can vary widely but is generally somewhere between about 1 million and 3 million soldiers. Two or more Army Regions could make up an Army Theater. An Army Region would typically be commanded by a full
General (US four stars), a
Field Marshal or
General of the Army (US five stars),
Generalissimo (Soviet Union) or
General of the Armies (US six stars), or by general officers holding ranks equivalent to six stars (for those nations that have had these generals). Due to the large size of this formation, its use is rarely employed. Some of the very few examples of an Army Region would be each of the Eastern, Western, and southern (mostly in Italy) fronts in Europe during
World War II. The military map symbol for this type of formation (see
Military organization and
APP-6A) is identified by the use of six Xs just above the map symbol.
See also
★
DEMOLOGOS Project
★
Regional development
★
Regional geography
★
Carl O. Sauer
★
Regional state
★
Region (Europe)
★
Subregion
★
DVD region
External links
★
Map and descriptions of hydrologic unit regions of the United States
★ [ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NCGC/products/watershed/hu-standards.pdf Federal Standards for Delineation of Hydrologic Unit Boundaries]
★
Physiographic regions of the United States
References
★ Bailey, Robert G. (1996) ''Ecosystem Geography''. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0-387-94586-5
★
Meinig, D.W. (1986). ''The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 1: Atlantic America, 1492-1800''. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-03548-9
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