The Geo §9 - §11

§9 Latin America, a region in the picture.

Latin America stretches from 32º NL (border between Mexico and the US) to 55º SL (Tierra del Fuego or the land of Fire).
In Latin America there is a Great variety of landscapes and natural zones. There are 3 different types of landscapes in Latin America as far as relief is concerned
1. Andes Mountain Range. (Highest 7000m)
2. Plateaus and Highland. (Highlands of Brazil, highlands of Guyana,
Plateau of Patagonia)
3. River drainage basins. (Amazon area.) There are three different coastal plains:
• The Orinoco
• The Amazon (largest)
• The Paraná Delta

The original inhabitants of Latin America were the Indians.
It was a sparsely populated continent. Urbanization and a denser population were only found in those areas where major cultures were developed. (Incas and Aztecs.) The children of an Indian and a blank immigrant are known as Mestizos.

Soon after Latin America was discovered, the continent was divided into two areas. The land to the west of 50º WL was given to Spain (in the Tordesillas Treaty.) The land to the east of 50º WL was given to the Portuguese people.
The Spanish found large amounts of gold and silver, and they had Indians to work there. The centre of the urban cities contained the ‘Plaza Mayor’ (a large city square) where the cathedral and public buildings were built. The rest looked like a ‘chessboard pattern’ (square blocks of houses and streets).
The Spanish sent out missionaries to convert the Indians.
Much land was stolen from the Indians and given to the Spanish. This resulted in enormous farms: the latifundia. That still exists. The rest of the farming population must either survive on very small farms (the Minifundia) or they have no land at all.
The Portuguese were less fortunate not to find many precious metals in their part of Latin America. There were fewer Indians who could be put to work as labourers. They extended their land via the Amazon River until far beyond the agreed border of 50º WL.
They farmed sugar and coffee a lot. There were not so many immigrants in the colonial age. However, immigration by Europeans increased in the nineteenth century, and was aimed mainly at Argentina, South Brasil and Uruguay. In order to put an end to the shortage of labour, they imported large numbers of slaves from Africa.
Children who have one white and one black parent are called ‘Mulattos’.

G-Numbers §9
The globe contains three temperature zones: Polar Regions, the temperate zone and the tropics. They are called climate zones. There are two ways of marking the climate zones:
1. Using circles of latitude. Mathematical definition. Hot all year round at the equator: the tropics. Temperate zone starts at 23½º NL and SL. The Polar Regions start at 66½º NL and SL. Polar Circles
2. Isotherms. Thermal boundaries. Boundaries tropics = 18 ºC isotherm in the coldest month. Polar Regions boundary = 10 ºC isotherm in the warmest month.

G51: Köppen classification
A = Tropical Climates
B = Dry Climates
C = Temperate (sea) Climates
D = Continental (land) Climate
E = Polar climates

f = whole year precipitation
s = dry in summer
w = dry in winter

BS = Steppe
BW = Desert

ET = Tundra
EH = Highland (mountains)

For example:
Cs = temperate climate with dry period in summer
Df = A continental climate with precipitation the whole year round
Aw = A Tropical climate with a dry period in winter

G52:
Border between A & C climate: palm line
Border between C & D climate: deciduous tree line
Border between D & E climate: pine tree line

G 70:
Different natural zones are mainly due to:
• Temperature – great influence on vegetation
• Precipitation – great influence on vegetation

§10 Chile, economic miracle of Latin America?
Chile was a late developer, for a number of reasons:
• It has an isolated location. Ocean on the west coast, desert in the north, and the Andes in the east.
• The country has a long narrow shape. It is more than 4000 km long, which makes it difficult to travel around. Most of the people live in the central area, where the capital city of Santiago is also located.
• The economy was almost exclusively based on farming. Besides farming, there was not much industry, and it was not until the discovery of sodium nitrate (saltpetre), a natural fertilizer in 1870, that there was any interest in Chile from abroad. Large copper reserves had been discovered in the Andes. Chile is estimated to have 40% of all the copper in the world.

Chile used to depend very heavily on one single export product, which is dangerous. In 1981, copper prices hit their all time low, and Chile’s income dropped drastically. After that, the country did its best to export a greater variety of products. This broadening of exports is called diversification.

Industry has never been very important in Chile. It was difficult to sell end products because of the small number of inhabitants. The sales market was too small.
Farming is much more important for Chile. The growth in this sector has balanced out the exports.
• There was strong growth in forestry.
• There was enormous growth in fruit trade.
• The most striking growth area is the wine sector.
• Tourism is also a booming sector.

Chile is trying to encourage its economy to grow further by two policies:
• Open up the country to transnational corporations, which are attracted by low taxes and the possibility of exporting profits freely out of the country.
• To ensure that there are more exports. Chile has therefore actively looked for new sales markets by entering into treaties with new countries, in which agreements have been made to remove import tariffs (tariff barriers) for certain products traded between the countries. Countries that are not included in such treaties must pay import tariffs, the common external tariff.

Global shift: the world’s economic centre has shifted to the countries around the Pacific Ocean.

G-numbers §10
G184:
Trans-national corporations are companies trading in many countries. Their scope covers the entire world.
Trans-national corporations: McDonalds, ING Group, Siemens, Volkswagen and so on.

G188:
Imposing import tariffs and other import restrictions can restrict trade between countries. Import tariffs are also referred to as ‘duties’. If a country imposes import tariffs, it is raising a virtual tariff barrier. They are bad for mutual trade.

G189:
Most EU countries can trade freely with each other. The EU is economically very strong: many goods are produced there and it has a large market with great purchasing power. The EU is therefore called a ‘trading block’.
These trading blocks are favourable for the local populations, but unfavourable for other countries.

§11 Urbanisation in Latin America.
Mexico City is one of the world’s largest cities. It’s located in the centre of Mexico and has been the national centre for economics and politics. Since 1960, millions of people have moved from the countryside, where the employment structure was insufficient to cope with the rapid population growth. There is less employment in farming because of the increasing mechanisation and irrigation. The low level of services in the countryside is another push factor.
The rural population think they will have more chances to find work in Mexico City because industry and services are concentrated in the capital city. They think that Mexico City offers more opportunities for better services and therefore a more comfortable life. This means that migration is always has been focused on the capital city alone. We call this migration from the countryside to the city “rural-urban migration”. The migrants are generally young, o that the crude birth rate is high and the crude death rate low, resulting in a considerable population increase. The natural increase contributes more to the growth of the large cities than the migration from the countryside. Rural-urban migration is still very important for the smaller cities.
*For a city model of a Latin American city see figure 20*
Many people who migrate to the city think they will have better chances of work than in the countryside. But this proves to be very difficult in practice:
• There is not enough work in industry, because it is poorly developed sector in Latin America.
• The only way to survive in the city is to earn money in all kinds of ways without actually earning a “formal” salary. “Informal sector”.
• The informal sector is very important for cities. In Peru 60% of the working population relies on the informal sector.
Two characteristics of urbanisation in Latin America:
• Nearly every country in South America has one very large city and a number of smaller cities. This is characteristic for many LEDCs. Large city is the centre for politics and the economy.
• A mega city which is much larger than all the other cities in a country is called a primate city. They are common in Latin America.
• The difference between the number of inhabitants of the largest city and the second city is called the primacy. This is the degree to which the first city is larger and more important than the second. The government often tries to reduce the differences. The population should be spread but that’s very difficult because such an enormous city is very attractive to people. In Latin America is the rate of urbanisation high. Slowly but surely, we can see the Asian cities moving towards the top 10 largest cities in the world.