Impact of Borders

As we look at the different divisions in political geography you begin to look at things such as political

spaces, borders, and geopolitical aspects of states. Borders can have significant impacts such as the splitting of cultures, races, and religions, as well as the differences in landscape. 

Formal and functional spaces are the building blocks of political spaces. Formal spaces being defined as a space that must be demarcated, delimited and defined. For those who do not know the meaning of these, each space must be able to be mapped out, there must be writing on the landscape, and the space needs to be documented. Some examples of these spaces are Appalachia and as well as any state in the US. A functional space is missing one aspect of a formal space, like the basque country in France or Spain. Sometimes these spaces do not coincide like the turf wars going on between gangs in places like Los Angeles, California causing heavy impacts on all citizens of the state not just the partaking gangs. 

Borders are both based on formations or boundaries of establishments and on the time in which the boundary establishment or formation was created. Descriptive borders are the borders based on the features, boundary establishment, or formation. There are three basic types of descriptive borders: physiographic (geomorphic)which is based upon the physical geography features, anthropogeographic follows human or cultural geography features, and geometric following latitude or longitude. Genetic borders are based on the time of boundary establishment or formation. Antecedent(pioneer) are created before human settlement, subsequent boundaries are created after significant human settlement, superimposed boundaries are placed without concern for the preexisting human settlement, and relic which are boundaries that no longer exist.