Geography

*—-Table of Contents
*—-For ggr codes, hop to Geography Glossary
0. Useful maps (EG=navigable internet maps)
1. Some Map Theory, Especially for Historians
  1a. Metropols and Peripheries
  1b. Moving-Map History of World Colonialism
  1c. A Peculiar SAC usage = AfroAsia
2. Geographic Table for Russian Eurasia
3. Demographic Page
4. Website and other useful Maps
5. General Websites
6. Bibliography of Atlases
7. The 89 Regions of Post-Soviet Russia
8. Russia/America: Frontiers and Imperial Peripheries

Find geographical acronyms and codes in Geography Glossary| MORE =
F/ecx/ for Environmental topics
F/EUA/ for Eurasia

0. INTRODUCTION = Useful maps
[E] = Eurasian outline map [EUA]
[R] = Standard map of “Russia/USSR/Russia”,
w/ topography & political/locational labels

Snow and ice in the global northern hemisphere [ecx]

CONNECT TO GOOD NAVIGABLE INTERNET MAPS =
Google Maps Eugene OR
Google Maps Eurasia [EUA]
GoogleEarth Russia

Enter these navigable internet maps in your web-browsing program’s BOOKMARKS window,
and/or
create a permanent “tab” featuring this webpage “Geography”, thus placing these electronic maps at your fingertips
Become fluent in your use of them (it takes practice)
They allow you to zoom in or out
They allow you to move around the world, even beyond the initial opening frame
They allow you to select “satellite images” of topography or conventional flat maps littered over with place-names

Some Map Theory, Especially for Historians

Speaking of “place-names” and the way they “litter” the face of the good earth on most maps, we need to be careful about how we name certain areas. Mountains have names, rivers have names, the great pools of water (lakes, seas, oceans) have names. These names can vary among the world’s many different languages, but they tend to be distinct & reasonably stable over time. Cities are like that too.

Larger territories, EG= “nation-states”, “empires”, and vaguely prescriptive “geo-regions” [EG=”The West” or “The Mideast” or “AfroAsia” or “Europe”], bear many different names over time.

On most maps, territorial nation-state borders are privileged to wrap topography in something like webs. Prominent lines are drawn to encompass areas that are frequently even colored differently [EG], as if the nation-state were as eternal and distinct in shape and location as mountains and seas, or as a piece of tile in an elaborate mosaic floor. The problem is, over time nation-states aren’t at all like tile over a stable platform. [On the philosophical question of drawing lines on MAPS [E-TXT]

For example, trace the map history of that geo-political unit called “Poland” [EG=The yellow and orange plots on these four historical maps of Poland]. Poland expands and contracts and moves all over the map of northeastern “Europe” more like a tasty cracker floating in a bowl of soup greedily stirred by neighboring powers than like a firmly laid tile floor.

Nation-states are misleadingly abbreviated in colloquial usage as “nations”. Technically, “nation” is not a geographic term. It is a demographic term. Demography is the study of populations. Demography can sometimes locate on maps identifiable varieties of peoples characterized by shared ethnicity and cultural traits like language and other forms of traditional behavior. A big part of those people called “Poles” have over the centuries lived just outside the borders of the territorial units called “Poland”. Much history follows from the fact that Poles often didn’t like this situation.

And remember that most nation-states (the geo-political term) are comprised of many different nations (culturally or ethnically differentiated peoples, a demographic term). In modern historical times, Russia has been an empire, later a republic within the USSR, and now a distinct nation-state, the Russian Federation. Russia the nation-state has generally put its borders around several score different ethnic nations, of which Russians, as a percentage of the over-all population, fluctuate around 50% [EG].

Russia is the largest nation-state on the face of the globe, and it forces us to re-think the geophysical feature we call the “continent” of Europe. Consider this long road trip = 2016jy09: “German team drives VW Touareg 15,000km from Magadan [ID] to Lisbon [ID] in record 154 hours” [that’s 8,830 miles, twice as far as from Anchorage to Miami] [E-TXT of www.rt.com article]

USA is a nation-state with borders around 50 “states” and around many different ethnic nations [EG]

Think also about “Germany” [Deutschland]. There was no nation-state Deutschland until 1871. Germans lived and still live in many different European places not within the nation-state Deutschland. Notice how the colored space representing language groups spills over the faint dash-lines or webbing indicating nation-state borders on this map.

Thus we have to be alert to the fluid nature of borders, and especially of “frontiers”. Most of known history has had people abutting and overlapping one another along frontiers rather than borders.

We do better to rivet our most fixed geographical knowledge to high points (mountains and high plateaus), low points (seas and oceans), the waters between the high and low points (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, canals), and the semi-permanent clusters of peoples in cities. Cities, most notably the great metropol centers, are reasonably stable in name

[CF= Geographic Table below]

For a fresh look at the meaning of maps, check this website =
“The Map as Cultural Assumption”
Here is a suggestive article about hand-drawn maps [2006mr-ap:VIA:37 =TXT]

Metropols and Peripheries

Throughout most known history, the geographic center of state power has been in great ruling cities. These big cities may be called “Metropols” (aka Metropoles or “Cores” )

Here is a table of world’s largest cities over the centuries [E-TXT]
Watch this moving-map video as the world’s cities appear over a 6,000-year period| The Guardian [VIDEO]

In the epoch historians call “modern” (IE=since trans-oceanic transport became practicable ca. 1600), urban-centered command-and-control power has been regularly projected beyond metropol outskirts, beyond borders of sovereign nation-state authority into wider geo-regions of the world. Here is a hop that gives the long-duration background to this modern historical trend. And at the same time the hop reminds us that urban-centered command-and-control power since that same time has also been exercised with new vigor within sovereign nation-state borders.

Metropols project their sovereign power outward toward what may be called “Peripheries”, toward geo-regions that can be either close to or far away from these urban power centers, either within or beyond nation-state borders.

The geographic terms “metropol” and “periphery” used here are derived from “World System” theory [ID].

Among world-system theories, SAC places unusual emphasis on three aspects of the question, (1) the distinction between “Imperialism and “Colonialism”, (2) the distinction between metropol-periphery relations within domestic political borders and those beyond nation-state borders [*2016:| Etkind,Aleksandr|_Внутренняя колонизация: имперский опыт России], (3) the importance of “asymmetric war” in both international and domestic projection of metropol power.

As for point #1, the two terms “imperialism” and “colonialism” are often conflated. In recent times, historians have used the term “Settler Colonialism” to de-link or at least bring some distinction of terms in the study of imperialism and colonialism.

Settler Colonial studies encourage transnational comparative understanding, a “focused world history” of a distinct form of imperialist domination, a particular sort of metropol projection into the periphery. Serious study began with *1989|>Wolfe,Patrick|_Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology

The most important set of questions about “settler colonialism” raised in SAC are in connection with USA and Russian frontier and imperialist expansion into contiguous peripheries [TXT]

Here in SAC, as we explore the geographical realm of historical experience [ID], let’s try to make a simple and far-from-absolute de-linkage of “imperialism” from “colonialism” = Imperialism means projection outward of central state power in pursuit of advantage to that central state power.

Imperialism can take the form of state-sponsored colonial settlement beyond sovereign state borders. But colonialism can be the result of more spontaneous movement of migrant peoples beyond original state borders into other territories, in pursuit of advantage to the colonists themselves. Both of these forms cause problems, as in the case of 19th-c Euro-Americans’ movement into and seizure of Native-American lands in the 19th century, or “illegal aliens” crossing the border into El Norte in the 21st. Still, the historian has to see that most instances of colonial imperialism has involved some form of metropol sponsorship, encouragement or supportive tolerance.

This is so even in our more recent period of “transnational corporations”. Most globalized economic enterprises are very thoroughly integrated with state power. In this regard there are differences between, say, the 19th-century Russian America Company [ID] and 21st-century Halliburton [ID]. But does this difference suggest a new era of imperialism in our time, or simply a re-emergence of early-modern 16th-century mercantilist imperialism [ID tempts you beneficially to take several hypertext hops on the key morpheme “mercantil”].

As for point #2, World System theory works as well for domestic political conflict (revolution) as it does for interstate conflict (war). SAC presumes that war and revolution are nearly indistinguishable. One is “international war” and the other is “domestic war” [EG].

As for point #3, wars and revolutions grow out of international and/or domestic imbalances of power between nation-states and/or social groups. For now, just let me suggest that the 19th-century concept of “balance of power” as a regulator of interstate relations and the 18th-century concepts of “checks and balances” [ID] and “sovereignty” [ID] as regulators of domestic political relationships both work to prevent development of “asymmetric warfare” abroad and at home.

Two cartoons capture the shared international and domestic political significance of this idea =
Cartoon #1 and cartoon #2

Moving-Map history of World Colonialism [imperialism],
1492-2008
Color-coding identifies the most important waxing and waning imperialist “nation-states” and their colonial peripheries,
seven at first, growing by 1885 to thirteen
Even before you open the moving MAP, here is some help from SAC to get a better grasp of
the map’s eleven time periods and the
several metropols (not all “European”) and
their many peripheries =

Period #01 *1492 [ SAC#1 | SAC#2 | SAC#3 ] Metropols = England, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Ottoman Empire (Turks), Denmark
Period #02 *1550 [ SAC#1 | SAC#2 ]
Period #03 *1660 [ SAC (3 hops on “New World” LOOP) ]
Period #04 *1754 [ SAC (2 entries) ] Metropols = add Netherlands to the list of expansive nations
Period #05 *1822 [ SAC#1 | SAC#2 (2 entries) | SAC#3 | SAC#4 | SAC#5 (long “Great Game” LOOP) ] Metropols = add USA
Period #06 *1885 [ SAC#1 (“Iran” LOOP) | SAC#2 | SAC#3 | SAC#5 ] Metropols = add Belgium, Italy, Germany and Japan
Period #07 *1914 [ SAC#1 | SAC#2 | SAC#3 |SAC#4 | SAC#5 | SAC#6]
Period #08 *1938 [ SAC#1 | SAC#2 | SAC#3 | SAC#4 (2 entries) | SAC#5 (6 hops on the “AfroAsia” LOOP to 45se13) | ]
Period #09 *1959 [ SAC]
Period #10 *1974 [ SAC]
Period #11 *2008 [ SAC]

The map moves automatically through those eleven time periods
The full half-millennium cycle takes only one minute
It is therefore very difficult to “take it all in”
I recommend you pause and ponder the video at each of the eleven time periods
Choose one of the areas, either metropol or periphery, and run through the eleven periods with concentration on your choice

Here is the moving MAP of World Colonialism [imperialism]

Into the 21st century, the conduct of imperial or nation-state diplomatic affairs was and still is frequently identified as the relationship between great ruling cities. When Great Britain (an empire) negotiated with Hitler Germany (also an empire, a Reich), it was frequently described as London negotiating with Berlin. The two metropols, these two centers of executive political authority (government), were negotiating their relationship with one another. At the center of attention were perceived overlapping “national interests” of these metropols, competition and conflict in claimed or desired peripheries.

The peripheries of that north German metropol Berlin expanded dramatically in WW2, and the peripheries of London shrank. SAC editor is in possession of an envelope stamped in 1939 from “Wien, Deutschland” [Vienna, Germany]. The Austrian metropol, Vienna, once the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, became a periphery of the north German metropol, Berlin. Vienna and Berlin have always been where they are, but a German empire was created in 1871 and centered in Berlin, then expanded tragically in WW2 [MAP], was greatly reduced and broken into four parts after 1945 [ID], consolidated quickly as two nation-states [ID], and in 1989, as the Soviet empire disintegrated, Germany reunited as one [ID]. Briefly marvel at these shifting maps of the British Empire.

With all the larger place-name instability, the Rhine and Danube rivers [ecx] just kept flowing along out of the Alps highlands. The Rhine flows into North Sea marshes where the Netherlanders live (wrongly but inalterably called “the Dutch” by English-speakers). The Danube flows through Austria [Ostreich or Eastern-empire] and into the Black Sea. The Danube River flows through diverse lands called “the Balkans” (a mountain chain that runs along the right bank of the big river). These are the lands of peoples whose histories were so often the histories of folks who live at the periphery of foreign great power metropols. EG=LOOP on “Yugoslavia” — just a few hops will do — to get a sense of how the metropols Vienna, Istanbul, Saint-Petersburg [Russia], and other powerful but remote metropols (EG=London and Paris) vied with one another for advantage there.

By the way, the word “Dutch” is an English corruption and misapplication of the German word for “German” [Deutsch]. The “Pennsylvania Dutch” are not from Nederland or Holland but from north central European German-speaking territories. “Yugoslavia” is simply the Slavic way of saying “the land where South Slavic peoples live”, but then in recent decades we learn that the borders of Yugoslavia were drawn around many other sorts of people, some of them not Slavs at all [EG].

We can feel very confident of geo-political terms like Mediterranean Sea, Damascus, Tigris and Euphrates, Volga, Mississippi, Hindu Kush [MAP-center-right]. But we must remain provisional in our use of terms that identify and try to distinguish large, shifting, indistinct and overlapping geo-regions =

• “The Americas” (a whole hemisphere of the globe in which one nation-state, “The United States of America” (USA) is generally abbreviated and thus technically misnamed “America”)
• “Continents” represent largely needless and often misleading geographic demarcations
• The distinctions implied by “North America”, “Central America” and “South America” are extremely casual
• The “continents” Europe and Asia are divided artificially down the low ridge of the Russian mountain chain “Urals”
• Eurasia is just as useful as a “continental” idea, certainly for that area we call “Russia”
• Truth is, in the long history of humanity’s remarkable expansion over the whole globe, “Africa”, “Europe”, “Asia” and “The Americas”, for all practical purposes, have been one great landmass, a single continent. That was so until the icy passage from NE “Siberia” to “Alaska” melted and, much later, the English completed the Suez Canal
• Look at two of the unusual but pleasing and inventive little Washington Post geo-icons used to flag sections of their internet edition that deal with designated world-news regions covered by the Post. These two regions are given traditional geographical names but cover unexpectedly expanded territories
1. “Europe” =
2. “Middle East” =
• The first map extends Europe across what is conventionally called “Asia”, all the way to the Bering Sea and only a couple of miles from USA Alaska
• Here is a similar [MAP] of what SAC calls AfroAsia, found in = 2017ap03:Johnson’s Russia List, “Newswatch”
• Compare the creative and appropriate maps above with the several maps below that explore how best to designate these large, vague geo-physical regions
• What are we going to do with the following numbered list of certain ubiquitous and supposed coherent geo-regions of the globe?
• Is it too extreme to call the following terms wooly, lending themselves to misleading or deceptive usage?
• Hoist the red-flag every time you come across the use of compass points in these and all other such designations
• Study this Washington Post blog on “East” and “West” [E-TXT]
1. East-Asia [Wki]
2. South-East Asia [Wki]
3. South-Asia [Wki]
4. Far-East [Wki]
5. The Orient [The East] [Wki]
6. The West [huge LOOP on “The West” before and after WW1 (1856-1934) ] “The West” and “Western” are terms functionally much like “the Orient” and “Oriental”. Curiously unlike “the Orient” and “Oriental”, “The West” and “Western” are generally taken to be positive or “politically correct” usage, particularly since the “Cold War” era and again in the early 21st century [EG]
7. * Levant (based on French word for sunrise in the east) [Wki]
8. * Asia Minor [W-ID | MAP]
9. * Central-Asia [Wki]
10. * West Asia or Western Asia [Wki]
11. * Near-East [Wki]
12. * Middle-East or Mideast [Wki | Jewish Virtual Library MAP]
• Let’s look more closely at the six terms just above, numbers 7-12 in bold-font, fronted with “*”
  • Viewed as a composite reference to places on this planet, these six bulleted areas stretch . . .
  1. Northward from the Indian Ocean to what is conventionally called southeast European Russia and
  2. Westward from China to the southern Mediterranean shores of northern Africa
  • Numbers 7-9 above seriously overlap with numbers 10-12
  • The final three terms label essentially identical territories
• The use of these six irregular terms fragments and obscures our understanding of world events
• These jumbling terms distract us from the shared histories & possibly shared futures in this large and vital region
• European imperialist terms “Levant” (a region) and “Syria” (a nation-state) blur over our understanding =
• 2014je20:NYT article on the various ways to translate the Arabic name for the vigorous military and political force just then spreading its cruel power over northern and central Iraq =
• Should this force be called “Islamic State in Iraq and Levant” [acronym = ISIL]
• or “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” [ISIS]
• or “Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham” [still acronymically ISIS]?
• NYT leaned toward the acronym “ISIS” with the understanding that the final “S” stood for the more appropriate but unfamiliar Arabic term “al-Sham” rather than “Syria”
• Reuters news agency showed some awareness of the broad implications of “al-Sham”
• “Al-Sham” is a historical term which denoted the great metropol Damascus and its hinterlands (its extensive peripheries) at the zenith of the Umayyad Caliphate [Wki]
• Over time, al-Sham came to denote a reduced area, running west-to-east from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River, north-to-south from the Taurus Mountains in SE Turkey to the Arabian desert (Saudi Arabia) [MAP]
• An expanded sense of “Levant” stretches into northern Africa (Egypt)
• To understand the full implications of al-Sham, we must look further than the increasingly artificial borders of Iraq and Syria [MAP]
• In a somewhat Quixotic effort to bring terminological uniformity to our thinking about this vast and vital area of the world, SAC has created a LOOP [ID] on the term “AfroAsia”
• AfroAsia is a neologism (a newly fabricated word) that allows us to link the histories of the “*” territories above
• SAC thus has launched an experimental exploration of shared interests and experience which might be otherwise hidden behind irregular use of those six standard but vague and misleading regional terminologies (##6-12 above)
• For example, an important but neglected “Southern Front” in World War One comes into clearer focus [ID]
• The same could be said about World War Two [ID]
• 2015mr: Joyce Karam, a pundit who specializes on the “Middle-East”, illustrated the coalition which Saudi Arabia pulled together to invade Yeman with a map that spans the wide area of SAC’s AfroAsia, stopping short of only the eastern extremes of SAC’s AfroAsia
• “AfroAsia” in SAC can be described along two axes, first in terms of more permanently named geo-physical features =
• West to east —
• Along the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea [MAP]
• Past the Red Sea and the shores of the Black Sea [Navigable MAP allowing user to move over all AfroAsia]
• Past the Persian Gulf and over the Caspian Sea
• To the Khyber Pass and the Dzungaria Gates of the Ili River
• North to south —
• From the southern tip of the Urals to the Arabian Sea
• An educated citizen of the world trying to follow 21st c. news needs to know where these solid north-south and east-west features are
• “AfroAsia” in SAC can be described also in terms of more fluid but contemporary and familiar geo-political units =
  • West to east —
  • From Morocco and Algeria in northwest “Africa” [CF=Two recent Al Jazeera features = TXT#1 and TXT#2] up to the borders of Pakistan, India and China, and including Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and the other countries of the Arabian peninsula
  • North to south —
  • From Kazakhstan to Yemen
• SAC is not alone responsible for the neologism “AfroAsia”. Here are two websites that use the term [W#1 | W#2]
• Wikipedia employs the phrase “Greater Middle East” to describe this vasty and vague area
• Put aside Wki’s bizzare retention of an ambiguous compass point (“East”) and see how closely this Wki MAP approximates the SAC meaning of “AfroAsia”
• AfroAsia, considered as a complex but unfragmented whole, centers on the weld-point that attaches three so-called and presumable “continents” = Africa, Asia and Europe
• A  globally significant double seam runs through this weld-point, south from the Crimean Peninsula, then down through the straits that link the Black with the Mediterranean seas, then south across the low sands of Suez into the Red Sea
• Over the centuries this decisive seam has been a place of constant global high-tensile stress among the peoples who live along it. It is a seismic fault line running through human history =
• Consider the “Roman” Empire at its apex ( just about the original “Western Civ”) [MAP#1 | MAP#2]
• Consider the continuation of the Roman Empire, the “Eastern Roman Empire” or “Byzantium“, centered in its new metropol “Constantinople” [Map#3, a moving map]
• Consider the geo-economic region popularly called the “Silk Road” [Wki]
• NB! on the Wki Silk Road map how AfroAsia is co-positioned with that huge dry desert swath across the face of the globe, from northwest Africa eastward almost to Pacific shores
• In connection with Pacific shores, here is a rare usage, “Afrasia” = _Afrasia: A tale of two continents by Ali AlʼAmin Mazrui and Seifudein Adem [noUO]
• SAC might well adopt Mazrui and Adem’s “Afrasia” in the place of AfroAsia. For one thing, “Afrasia” parallels another useful but irregular term, “Eurasia” [TXT]
• However, Mazrui and Adem’s Afrasia deals with China and other big-power contestants for African raw materials. It deals only with the extreme edges of what SAC wants to call AfroAsia
• The clear dry swath across the globe from northwest Africa and into China is well revealed on this Boston school system map which has as its central purpose to correct the mistaken impression made by the old standard mercator projection of relative sizes of geo-physical areas of the globe [MAP]
• Consider how in medieval times, before nation-states, even before wide usage of the largish word “Europe”, the geo-religious term “Christendom” came to have broad geo-political meaning
  • NB! “Christendom” refers to a religious creed which originated in the “middle east”
  • Its first home was AfroAsia, but it spread world-wide =
  • Here is the Wki MAP of Christendom from ca. 300 AD to ca. 600 AD
• The geo-religious phrase “Islamic world” or “Muslim world” [Wki ID] might be thought to have geo-political meaning [MAP#1 | MAP#2]
• 0632:0655; In this brief quarter-century, Arabic power spread over a wide territory that might well be called AfroAsia [Moving MAP]
• However, the Islamic world (the territorial distribution of the religion) stretched significantly beyond SAC’s AfroAsia, deep into middle and southern Africa and across “South-Asia” eastward to Pacific waters, including Pakistan and Indonesia
• Nonetheless, do notice the overlap of the SAC “AfroAsia” with the green and blue-tinted regions of the Islamic world in north Africa, Europe and west Asia [MAP]
• We can distinguish the geo-religious term “Islamic world” from geo-political term “Arabic Empire”
• The spread of the Arabic Empire was over a geo-political territory that included lands that closely correspond to the SAC meaning of “AfroAsia” [1884:MAP of 8th-century Arabia | MAP#2]
• NB! overlap of the SAC notion “AfroAsia” with areas where Arabic and other Semitic languages dominate [MAP]
• How about overlap with this effort to map the historical decline of official Arabic script? [MAP]
• Official use of Arabic script declined globally, but we all know that Arabic numerals had great longevity and ubiquity
• Consider the nearly 200-year history of aggressive west European “crusades” into “AfroAsia”, frequently called “The Holy Land” [ID]
• 0790:1300; SW European “Reconquista” crusade against Islamic AfroAsians in what we now call Spain
• 1096:1270; the main crusades [MAP of First Crusade]
• This distant history has flared in more recent times = 2014je:News item [TXT]
• Does the memory of “the crusades” help explain why the Islamic world so much despised the term “crusade” when US President George W. Bush referred to his “war on terror” as a “crusade”
• Consider one of the greatest empires in human history, the Mongol Empire [SAC LOOP]
• Mongols ruled over a Eurasian territory that stretched from the Sea of Japan to the walls of Vienna, from Baltic Sea rivers to Egypt at the northeast corner of what we call “Africa” [Wki ID | MAP], and even further south into India
• Continuing our exploration of the neologism “AfroAsia”, consider these two MAPS of the Ottoman Turkic Empire =
  1. 1812:MAP (notice the black lines outlining “borders” of contemporary nation-states. Very few of these borders existed as of 1812)
  2. 1683:MAP
  3. Moving map of rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire
• Notice how Fernand Braudel used the phrase “Mediterranean world” in one of the greatest and most influential efforts to bring macro-historical clarity to this region [ID]
• Braudel’s massive study helps bring the SAC neologism “AfroAsia” into closer relationship with that region generally called “Europe” in modern times [Wki ID]
• We are so used to the term “Europe” that we forget how loose and approximate it is
• We might thus also forget what a wondrous thing it is
• You might detect that SAC is trying to imitate that great Leo-Tolstoyan technique of ostraneniia [making the all-too-familiar fresh again, even “strange” or “wondrous”, a process of de-familiarization and re-familiarization]
• Tolstoy could make us think a smile was a miracle rather than a commonplace facial expression
• By its exploration of “focused world history”, SAC seeks to make a most common term like “Europe” or “USA” or “Russia” feel a bit like a fascinating neologism, requiring attentive inspection. And SAC asks us to take the same approach to “AfroAsia”
• Ponder the relationship of SAC’s “AfroAsia” to what the early 20th-century US geo-politician Halford Mackinder identified as the global “Inner Crescent” [ID]
  • His “Inner Crescent” straddled what he called “the world island” [arcing through the point of conjunction where the three “continents” we call Asia, Africa and Europe touch]
  • This “Inner Crescent” hugged the western, southern and eastern edges of a critical spot at the center-point on the globe. Mackinder called the spot “the pivot area of history” [MAP]
  • In Mackinder’s time, the early 20th century, the “Pivot area” was the doomed Russian Empire [ID]
  • Mackinder might applaud our observation (but deplore the fact) that the “Pivot Area” expanded vigorously in its Soviet period (1922-1992)
  • Mackinder might then have taken comfort from the fact that the “Pivot Area” contracted dramatically with the fall of the USSR
  • A most notable consequence of Soviet collapse was that “Central Asian” territories slipped out of Mackinder’s Pivot Area and into the vulnerable area of the “Inner Crescent”
  • “Central Asia” now found itself floating atop the area SAC labels “AfroAsia”
  • I think Mackinder would not be surprised if we observed three further trends since he wrote back in 1904 =
  1. Emergence of a new great power, USA, out there in the “Outer Crescent”
  • Notice how a 2013 strategic shift in USA military policy is described in this news release = [W-TXT]
  2. Troubled expansions and contractions of power in Great Britain and Japan the two most important outer islands in Mackinder’s time
  3. Growth of a new great power, China, within the “Inner Crescent”]
  • But Mackinder might be quick to assert that his original “Pivot Area” still is huge and powerful
  • Mackinder’s Pivot Area and the great powers in the “Outer Crescent” may together still hold in their hands the fate of the expanded “Inner Crescent”
  • That assertion may be of some use to us as we struggle to understand the larger meaning of “AfroAsia”
  • That assertion might help bring the area that SAC calls “AfroAsia” into clearer macro-historical relationship with Europe (a “continent”), Russia (a nation-state), China (a nation-state) and USA (a nation-state)
• 2013se:NYT article about the need to restructure our thinking about “The Middle East”, perhaps to restructure the area itself [TXT]
• 2013:MAP of places in the world restricting internet usage
• Here is the beginning in the 1850s of a ca. 45-hop chronological SAC LOOP on “AfroAsia”

GEOGRAPHIC TABLE:
Russia and its “Near Abroad”:
HIGH POINTS, LOW POOLS,
THE WATERS THAT FLOW BETWEEN,
CONCENTRATED POPULATIONS (CITIES),
& OTHER FEATURES

In the table below, the central organizational principle, defining each row at column 2, is the river
On any row, from column one (far left) to column five (far right), you take an imaginary river trip from highlands to various seas,
from the high points to the low pools.

Obviously an imaginary river trip works best if you have a map at hand
or use the hypertext links to maps in column 5
to give spatial identity to the imaginary river trip

Column 1, High Points and the rivers that flow from them, explained =
The six most important high points, with their most important watersheds (entered here roughly SW to NE) are =

1) Caucasus Mts. (Mt. El’brus = 18,500)
GO Kuban and Kura rivers
2) Valdai Hills (1138 ft., this the highest spot in European Russia)
GO Dnepr [rises 830 ft above sea level], Vistula, Western.Dvina, Velikaia, Volkhov, Volga [730 ft.]
3) Ural Mts. (Urals; 6214 ft maximum height in the far north; few points above 4000 ft.
The Trans-Siberian Railroad crosses the Urals at 1345 ft. Mt. Tom in the Coburg Hills = 3100 ft.)
GO [Pechora], Kama, Ufa, Ural, Northern Dvina, Tobol, and Tavda rivers
4) Tien Shan Mts., divides China’s Sinkiang border from Central Asia (Mt.Communism = 24,600)
GO Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Ili rivers
5) Lake Baikal (6365 ft. deep) and the western slopes of its high west bank
GO Angara and Lena rivers
6) Altai highlands of western Mongolia (15,266 at highest peak)
GO Ob – Irtysh [not unlike forked Missouri – Mississippi], Yenisei, Amur, Argun and Shilka rivers

Column 2, Rivers, explained =

The table as a whole features 27 Eurasian river systems, their origins, course and destinations
There are 17 rivers (top 17 rows) in what is called “European Russia”
This includes some rivers in non-Russian territories which have been frequently in the orbit of Russian power.

Column 3, Cities, explained =

Most of the cities here are located along rivers
But NB! a small number of mountain cities [bracketed in column 1]
And coastal cities [bracketed in column 4]

Column 4, Low Pools & other features

Column 5 explained =
Alpha-coded to identify the seven major low pools =

A = Black Sea
B = Caspian Sea
C = Baltic Sea
D = White Sea
E = Aral Sea [ecx (with excellent and generally very wise comments by Nils Anders Lunde) ]
F = Arctic Sea [or Arctic Ocean], and
G = Sea of Okhotsk

The first four low pools (A-D) are the destinations of what we conventionally call “European” rivers
The last three (E-G) are “Asian” (Siberian)
Notice how a number is attached to each alpha-coded drainage region to specify individual river systems
EG=The great Volga River is in the (B) Caspian Sea region and is coded “B1“.

Column 5 also contains hypertext hop-points =

[m] = Regional map of the given low pool
[E] = Eurasian outline map
[R] = Standard map of “Russia/USSR/Russia”, w/ topography & political/locational labels
[G] = GoogleEarth map of Eurasia with powerful but difficult exploration feature

These maps facilitate imaginary river trips,
a good way to gain mastery over this river-centered table of Russian and northern Asian geography
Here in river-city Eugene, river consciousness is a mind-expanding experience.

MAPSITE and OTHER USEFUL MAPS

Russia |—| Eurasia outline |—| Northern Hemisphere Snow & Ice Charts
Global tetrahedral |—| USA.CIA maps |—| Interactive map centered on Djibouti

Imperial Russian Maps and Digital Peasant Project
Old Map of Russian Empire, with “Zoom”
Geography of the Russian Empire, province [guberniia] by province
Russian genealogical resources, with maps

• GoogleEarth — click to tighten fist and drag yourself anywhere in the world
• UNO maps
• UO map (atlas) website
• Global tetrahedral projection
• North-polar projections of Cold War globe
• World soil map [ecx]
• Eurasia, growth of “civilization” to 200 BC [EUA]
• North, East and South Asia [EUA]
• Eurasia (without far-western Europe) [CIA] [EUA]
• Excellent Free Blank Map of Eurasia, showing nation-state borders [EUA]
• Fallingrain Regions of Russia | Here is a post 1993 list of administrative regions
• 1914:Russian Administrative regions
• One of the best collections of maps of Russian-centered Eurasia  [EUA]
• A set of historical maps of Russia and Eurasia, with places labeled [EUA]
• Russia, geo-physical and political (with rail lines)
• R=BIG MAP OF RUSSIA; Ditto
• Snow Today on the Northern Hemisphere [ecx]
• Permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere [ecx]
• Permafrost in Russia [ecx]
• Vegetative zones of Russia [ecx]
• 2002:Caspian Sea Pipelines
• Petroleum deposits and pipelines (dated)
• Russian national parks and preserves
• Areas of key environmental problems (Adobe); Ditto (not Adobe) [ecx]
• Area Studies, country by country

• USA at night

  

  Here is a list of the 89 federal units of Russia in order of population according to the 2002 census
  This list contains some comments from www.economicexpert

  1. Moscow 10,382,754
  2. Moscow Oblast 6,618,538
  3. Krasnodar Krai 5,125,221
  4. Saint Petersburg 4,661,219
  5. Sverdlovsk Oblast 4,486,214
  6. Rostov Oblast 4,404,013
  7. Bashkortostan 4,104,336
  8. Tatarstan 3,779,265
  9. Chelyabinsk Oblast 3,603,339
  10. Nizhny Novgorod Oblast 3,524,028
  11. Tyumen Oblast 3,264,841
  12. Samara Oblast 3,239,737
  13. Krasnoyarsk Krai 2,966,042
  14. Kemerovo Oblast ( 1995 pop. 3,077,900 est. Often called Kuzbass after the Kuznetsk Coal Basin, located in southwestern Siberia, Russia, where the West-Siberian Plain meets the South Siberian mountains. The oblast, 95,700 km², shares a border with Tomsk 2,899,142)
  15. Perm Oblast is in the Privolzhsky (Volga) Federal District of Russia. It is named after its primary city, Perm. The oblast covers an area of 160,600 km², and as of the 2002 census the population was 2,819,421
  16. Stavropol Krai is a regional subdivision of Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Stavropol. As of February 2004 its governor is Alexander Chernogorov. Administrative Division Districts Stavropol Krai consists of the following districts : Alexa 2,735,139
  17. Volgograd Oblast is a regional subdivision of Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Volgograd. Area 114,100 km², population 2,531,000 ( 1985). Administrative Division Districts Volgograd Oblast consists of the following districts ( Russian: ): 2,699,223
  18. Novosibirsk Oblast is a regional subdivision of Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Novosibirsk. Novosibirsk Oblast (area 178,200 km², pop. 2,748,500 est. 1995) is located in the southeastern Western Siberian plain, at the foothills of low S 2,692,251
  19. Saratov Oblast ( Russian: ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is Saratov. Major cities include Balakovo (pop. 200,600 as of 2002) and Engels (pop. Area 100,200 km² ( ranked 36th), 2,668,310
  20. Altai Krai (́ ) is a regional subdivision of Russia in the Siberian Federal District. It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblasts and the Altai Republic. The krai’s administrative center is the city of Bar 2,607,426
  21. The Irkutsk Oblast Russia is located in south-eastern Siberia in the basins of Angara, Lena and Nizhnyaya Tunguska rivers, and occupies an area of 767,900 km² (4. 6% of Russia’s territory). The Irkutsk Oblast borders with the Buryat and Tuva Republics in 2,581,705
  22. Dagestan 2,576,531
  23. Voronezh Oblast 2,378,80
  24. Orenburg Oblast 2,179,551
  25. Omsk Oblast 2,079,220
  26. Primorsky Krai 2,071,210
  27. Tula Oblast 1,675,758
  28. Leningrad Oblast 1,669,205
  29. Udmurtia 1,570,316
  30. Vladimir Oblast 1,523,990
  31. Belgorod Oblast 1,511,620
  32. Kirov Oblast 1,503,529
  33. Tver Oblast 1,471,459
  34. Penza Oblast 1,452,941
  35. Khabarovsk Krai 1,436,570
  36. Khantia-Mansia 1,432,817
  37. Ulyanovsk Oblast 1,382,811
  38. Bryansk Oblast 1,378,941
  39. Yaroslavl Oblast 1,367,398
  40. Arkhangelsk Oblast 1,336,539
  41. Chuvashia 1,313,754
  42. Vologda Oblast 1,269,568
  43. Kursk Oblast 1,235,091
  44. Ryazan Oblast 1,227,910
  45. Lipetsk Oblast 1,213,499
  46. Tambov Oblast 1,178,443
  47. Chita Oblast 1,155,346
  48. Ivanovo Oblast 1,148,329
  49. Chechnya 1,103,686
  50. Smolensk Oblast 1,049,574
  51. Tomsk Oblast 1,046,039
  52. Kaluga Oblast 1,041,641
  53. Kurgan Oblast 1,019,532
  54. Komi Republic 1,018,674
  55. Astrakhan Oblast 1,005,276
  56. Buryat Republic 981,238
  57. Kaliningrad Oblast 955,281
  58. Sakha Republic 949,280
  59. Amur Oblast 902,844
  60. Kabardino-Balkaria 901,494
  61. Murmansk Oblast 892,534
  62. Mordovia 888,766
  63. Oryol Oblast 860,262
  64. Pskov Oblast 760,810
  65. Kostroma Oblast 736,641
  66. Mariy El 727,979
  67. Republic of Karelia 716,281
  68. North Ossetia-Alania 710,275
  69. Novgorod Oblast 694,355
  70. Sakhalin Oblast 546,695
  71. Khakassia 546,072
  72. Yamalia 507,006
  73. Ingushetia 467,294
  74. Adygeya 447,109
  75. Karachay-Cherkessia 439,470
  76. Kamchatka Oblast 358,801
  77. Tuva 305,510
  78. Kalmykia 292,410
  79. Altai Republic 202,947
  80. Jewish Autonomous Oblast 190,915
  81. Magadan Oblast 182,726
  82. Permyakia 136,076
  83. Ust-Orda Buryatia 135,327
  84. Aga Buryatia 72,213
  85. Chukotka 53,824
  86. Nenetsia 41,546
  87. Taymyria 39,786
  88. Koryakia 25,157
  89. Evenkia 17,697

  

Websites

• Library of Congress Country Studies
• List of Russian Webservers

Bibliography of Atlases
EUROPE AND THE WORLD
(Russia and Eastern Europe at the bottom)
with Locations
MAP = Knight Library Map collection
REF = Knight Library Reference Room

The most useful atlases of Russian history are listed in the GLOSSARY

<>Atlas zur Zeitgeschichte : Europa im 20. Jahrhundert
<>Cassell atlas of world history | On 20^th-c world, see scts 5.05, 5.06, & all of sct 6
<>Collins atlas of twentieth century world history
<>Collins atlas of world history
<>Hammond atlas of the 20th century
<>National Geographic atlas of world history | On 20^th century world, see pp. 302-79
<>Natkiel, Richard, et al. Atlas of the 20th century
<>Oxford illustrated history of modern Europe. Edited by T.C.W. Blanning
<>Palmowski, Jan. A dictionary of twentieth-century world history
<>Rand McNally Historical atlas of the world
<>Times atlas of European history | On 20^th century world, see pp. 164-91
<>Times atlas of the 20th century
<>Times atlas of world history
<>Wheatcroft, Andrew. The world atlas of revolutions

Russia and Eastern Europe

Burdett, Anita L. P., ed. The historical boundaries between Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia: documents and maps 1815-1945

Landscape Atlas of the USSR | Maps #6-30 = close-ups of strategic points in Western European Russia, from Baltic shores, over the central plains, down to the Black Sea Coast. See the good outline maps, pp. 19 and 37

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NORTHERN HEMISPHERE SNOW & ICE CHARTS [NOAA website]

*2004fe09:Northern Hemisphere Snow & Ice Chart
*2010fe11:Northern Hemisphere Snow & Ice Chart
*LATEST Northern Hemisphere Snow & Ice Chart

2015se01:2016au31; Northern Hemisphere Snow & Ice Chart animated to show passage of whole year