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On Boundaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Eric Fischer
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Extract

In judging a boundary from a geographer's point of view many physical as well as human aspects come under consideration. Stress has shifted from one aspect of the problem to another according to the particular bias of the times.

At the time of the Paris peace conferences, geographers shared the general opinion that the linguistic factor should receive the greatest consideration in determining boundaries between national states. Language was regarded as the best criterion for drawing boundaries which would recognize what was called at that date “the right of self-determination.” It was a new factor in diplomatic negotiations. Shift of emphasis from physical features to cultural characteristics as bases for boundary lines reflected the popular swing toward self-determination.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , January 1949 , pp. 196 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1949

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References

1 Brightman, George F., “The Boundaries of Utah,” Economic Geography, Vol. 16 (1940), pp. 87–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Hartshorne, R., “Geographic and Political Boundaries in Upper Silesia,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 23 (1933), pp. 195ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The recent history of Upper Silesia shows how long a former boundary may persist before changing values find their expression in a new one. The old boundary created by dynastic divisions and maintained by dynastic power had a natural setting in a sandy, infertile, forested, thinly settled zone. Small streams were used as naturally marked boundary lines. The development of coalfields, mines, and industry created a coherent, but hardly integrated industrial landscape on both sides of the border. This and the influx of workers from other regions pushed into the background the physiographical features which had determined the location of the boundary. At the same period the Poles of Upper Silesia for the first time became acutely aware of their separation from the Poles in the then Russian Poland. So the boundary gradually lost its foundation. But it took World War I, originated extraneously, to break the old boundary down. There seems little reason to doubt that without this war it could have persisted for a very long time, without even seeming to be a major cause of friction.

The Versailles boundary in this area proved especially unsatisfactory, perhaps not so much because it did not solve the nationality problem, as because it put this problem into high relief and added to it economic hardships. Power lines, roads, urban streetcar lines, sewage systems, were cut apart. The dismemberment of such utilities cannot but focus the attention of all directly concerned on the disadvantages of the border. Hartshorne has shown that the pre-1918 Russian-German boundary in Upper Silesia was clearly visible in the nationally, physiographically, climatically, etc., uniform Polish landscape. The cultural pattern of each side of the abolished boundary still widely differed from the other in the greater or lesser importance of livestock, difference in yield of crops, domestic practices, and material used for house-building. It will be interesting to observe how far the historical boundary will still be recognizable in the new Poland and whether the Versailles boundary, despite its brief existence, can still be detected in the human landscape a few years from now.

8 Capot-Rey, Robert, La région sarroise, Nancy, 1934.Google Scholar

4 Whittlesey, Derwent, “The Impress of Effective Central Authority Upon the Landscape,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 25 (1935), pp. 85ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Curzon, George Nathaniel, Frontiers, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907, 2nd ed., 1908.Google Scholar