1. Topic: Spatial Characteristics of States (Territorial Morphology)
Aim: In what ways can the shapes of states influence them? 1

2. The State of Shapes Activity:
For each of the following countries, try to determine what are the relative advantages and disadvantages that might be caused by the shape of the country, and nothing more.

3. Uruguay, Zimbabwe, Poland, Belgium, Rwanda

4. Shape: Compact
Distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly
Most ideal and efficient form is a circle with a capital in the center, and the shortest possible boundaries to defend
Uruguay, Zimbabwe, Poland, Kenya, Rwanda 4

5. Namibia, Oklahoma (U.S. State), Thailand, Afghanistan

6. Shape: Prorupt (aka - protruded or panhandled):
Nearly compact but posses one or more narrow extensions of territory which can be either natural or artificial
Proruptions can be built to gain access to resources (i.e. - Belgians gaining access to Atlantic Ocean through Congo), or to separate areas from one another (i.e. - British proruption in Afghanistan preventing Russia from sharing a border with Pakistan) 6

7. Norway, Chile, Vietnam, Italy:

8. Shape: Elongated Long and narrow shape
Distance from the capital is greater
A large amount of diversity of climate, resources, and cultures
National cohesion difficult - suffer from poor internal communications 8

9. South Africa & Lesotho (pronounced li-soo-too )/ Rome & Vatican City/ Senegal & Gambia

10. Shape - Perforated
State that completely surrounds another one is a perforated state.
The surrounded state (Lesotho, e.g.) thus depends heavily on the state surrounding it for imports/exports
Video - Countries Inside Countries: Bizarre Borders part 1 (YouTube - 2 minutes) 10

12. Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Denmark, Philippines

13. Shape: Fragmented, or archipelagic
Several discontinuous pieces of territory - 2 types
Fragmented states separated by water - (e.g. island nations such as Indonesia, 13,677 islands, or Malaysia)
Fragmented states separated by an intervening state - (e.g. Angola divided by Congo proruption or Russian territory of Kaliningrad separated by Lithuania and Belarus)
Fragmentation weakens communication, fragments culture, and makes centralized control difficult
Fragmentation caused either by water or by another state (i.e. - Alaska and U.S. separated by Canada) 13

14. Landlocked Countries
Landlocked states lack a direct outlet to the seas because they are surrounded by other countries on all sides. In other words they have no coastline. There are over 40 landlocked states in the world
Africa & Europe have the most landlocked states than any continents (15 each).
Asia has 12 including Mongolia & Nepal are landlocked with rough terrain, great distances and limited communication, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia & Georgia.
South America (2) -Bolivia and Paraguay
Europe -Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Moldova, Belarus and Bosnia
North America, Australia, and Antarctica have no landlocked states 14