The whole of Ratzel's considerations about political region is founded on the idea of “Staat als Organismus” and that of Maull's, on the idea of “Staat als Landschaftsgebiet”. Both fails to explain its modifi-cation and diversity satisfatory, because they do not deal with the politcal community which primarily affects its form and structure. Mackinder's consideration of heartland is not identified with the above two ideas of Ratzel and Maull; nevertheless, he did not take into consideration the relationship between political powers from the, functional point of view.
M. Le Lannou defined the political boundary, as a cause of geographial facts, rather than as a result of them. In this sense, political regions. must be regarded as economic regions bounded by political boundary.
The form and structure of political regions are unstable. The author has recognized three groups of factors which effect them. The first of those factors is for fitting; the second is for combining; the third is, for disconnecting.
They are as follows, (1) factors for fitting: a. land (as territory, as. “Ökum-ene” and as producing area), b. resource (as material base of state economy) c. ethnic community (as having common language, common faith, common living form), (2) factors for combining: a. function of traffic, b. regional differentiation of productive function, c. magnification and development of exchanging market. (3) factors for disconnecting: a. political boundary and frontier, b. control of economic relationship, c. antagonism of ideologies, etc..
Political region is the spatial representation of relationships between various political communities, and modes of combination of core-regions and marginal regions.
The types of rpolitical regions are classified as follows: 1. the first type (as having not clear core), 2. the second type (as having one core and forming not circlic structure), 3. the third type (circlic stru-cture, one core), 4. the fourth type (as having several homogeneous cores), 5. the fifth type (as having several heterogeneous cores). These types are variable, each of which is the complex of partial units. And between these units exist predominating unit and subordinate unit.
Several states in southern and eastern Asia form “Bewegugsgrenzen” between two powers, namely the capitalist states and the socialist states. Predominating unit in each power is also heartland, and “Bewegungs-grenzen” fall under marginal land. The ocean, as combining heartland with marginal land, is a stage of circulation. The magnification and the development of function of circulation are producing the modification and diversity of political region.
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