World Regions: Development, Economy, and Culture
Millennium Development Goals
- Improve maternal health
- Combat AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
NGOs and private organizations formed by volunteers, humanitarian, health, education, and human rights… in underdeveloped countries.
Regions and Regional Groupings
Location: An area or portion of geographic space endowed with homogeneous characteristics.
Types of Regional Groupings by Factors:
- Political factors (sets of state administrative divisions, etc.) and the EU, Spanish regions.
- Economic factors (differences in the degree of economic development, etc.) In developed countries, peripheral countries.
- Natural factors (from the standpoint of the physical environment) in Scandinavia, Africa.
- Historical factors (related areas in the past) in former communist countries in the East, Southeast Asia.
The Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of North Africa composed of the following countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania. It is a natural region.
Physical environment: From the Mediterranean coastal plains and the Atlas Mountains to the south is the Sahara desert. The climate is Mediterranean in the north and subtropical desert in the south. In Mauritania, it is desert.
Population: High fertility, together with weak economic migration, causes many to migrate to the European continent. The Maghreb has a predominantly rural population.
Economic activities:
- Morocco: Tourism dominates, the country now constituting an area of delocalization for some European companies.
- Libya and Algeria: The exploitation of natural gas and oil prevails.
- Tunisia: Tourism is the main source of income.
- Mauritania: Subsistence agriculture and livestock predominate.
Cultural aspects: The Arabic language (although not the sole) and the Islamic religion (traditions such as the festival of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha).
Political: Authoritarian regimes predominate.
The Middle East
Autonomy, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Gulf States.
Apparent Similarities: Predominance of the Muslim religion, Arabic language, historical, cultural diversity (ethnic, religious, and linguistic).
Religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In terms of the physical environment, it presents a remarkable diversity.
Oil and Conflict: The Middle East is a strategic region because its oil reserves and natural gas are abundant and easy to exploit. Only Saudi Arabia has a quarter of worldwide reserves. But this fact often leads to social unrest and many conflicts for possession of these reserves.
India and China
Economic growth and represent a new center of the world economy.
India: A country with many contrasts and inequalities (creating a middle class from economic changes). The textile industry, pharmaceuticals (specialized in the production of generic drugs, and the production of software) dominate.
China: Ethnic and linguistic diversity and significant imbalances between the rural (60% of the total population). China is the seventh-largest world economy according to its GDP, ranks third in international trade, and is the world’s first recipient of foreign industrial investment. The spectacular Chinese economic growth also has negative aspects, such as working conditions for low wages. There are abundant internal imbalances between the country and the city.