Region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics, human impact characteristics, and/or the interaction of humanity and the environment. Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such as national borders are defined in law. More confined or well bounded portions are called locations or places.
The areal extent of a geographical region is often expressed in square kilometres or hectares.
Apart from the global continental regions, there are also hydrospheric and atmospheric regions that cover the oceans, and discrete climates above the land and water masses of the planet. The land and water global regions are divided into subregions geographically bounded by large geological features that influence large-scale ecologies, such as plains and features.
As a way of describing spatial areas, the concept of regions is important and widely used among the many branches of geography, each of which can describe areas in regional terms. For example, ecoregion is a term used in environmental geography, cultural region in cultural geography, bioregion in biogeography, and so on. The field of geography that studies regions themselves is called regional geography. Regions are an area or division, especially part of a country or the world having definable characteristics but not always fixed boundaries.
In the fields of physical geography, ecology, biogeography, zoogeography, and environmental geography, regions tend to be based on natural features such as ecosystems or biotopes, biomes, drainage basins, natural regions, mountain ranges, soil types. Where human geography is concerned, the regions and subregions are described by the discipline of ethnography.
Globalization
Global regions are distinguishable from space, and are therefore clearly distinguished by the two basic terrestrial environments, land and water. However, they have been generally recognized as such much earlier by terrestrial cartography because of their impact on human geography. They are divided into the largest of land regions, known as continents and the largest of water regions known as oceans. There are also significant regions that do not belong to either classification, such as archipelago regions that are littoral regions, or earthquake regions that are defined in geology.Continental regions
Continental regions are usually based on broad experiences in human history and attempt to reduce very large areas to more manageable regionalization for the purpose of the study. As such they are conceptual constructs, usually lacking distinct boundaries. The oceanic division into maritime regions is used in conjunction with the relationship to the central area of the continent, using directions of the compass.Some continental regions are defined by the major continental feature of their identity, such as the Amazon basin, or the Sahara, which both occupy a significant percentage of their respective continental land area.
To a large extent, major continental regions are mental constructs created by considering an efficient way to define large areas of the continents. For the most part, the images of the world are derived as much from academic studies, from all types of media, or from personal experience of global exploration. They are a matter of collective human knowledge of their own planet and are attempts to better understand their environments.
Regional geography
is a branch of geography that studies regions of all sizes across the Earth. It has a prevailing descriptive character. The main aim is to understand or define the uniqueness or character of a particular region, which consists of natural as well as human elements. Attention is paid also to regionalization, which covers the proper techniques of space delimitation into regions.Regional geography is also considered as a certain approach to study in geographical sciences.
Human geography
is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with various discrete environments. It encompasses human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects among others that are often clearly delineated. While the major focus of human geography is not the physical landscape of the Earth, it is hardly possible to discuss human geography without referring to the physical landscape on which human activities are being played out, and environmental geography is emerging as a link between the two. Regions of human geography can be divided into many broad categories:Historical regions
The field of historical geography involves the study of human history as it relates to places and regions, or the study of how places and regions have changed over time.D. W. Meinig, a historical geographer of America, describes many historical regions in his book The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. For example, in identifying European "source regions" in early American colonization efforts, he defines and describes the Northwest European Atlantic Protestant Region, which includes sub-regions such as the "Western Channel Community", which itself is made of sub-regions such as the English West Country of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset.
In describing historic regions of America, Meinig writes of "The Great Fishery" off the coast of Newfoundland and New England, an oceanic region that includes the Grand Banks. He rejects regions traditionally used in describing American history, like New France, "West Indies", the Middle Colonies, and the individual colonies themselves. Instead he writes of "discrete colonization areas", which may be named after colonies but rarely adhere strictly to political boundaries. Among other historic regions of this type, he writes about "Greater New England" and its major sub-regions of "Plymouth", "New Haven shores", "Rhode Island", "the Piscataqua", "Massachusetts Bay", "Connecticut Valley", and to a lesser degree, regions in the sphere of influence of Greater New England, "Acadia", "Newfoundland and The Fishery/The Banks".
Other examples of historical regions are Iroquoia, Ohio Country, Illinois Country, and Rupert's Land.
In Russia, historical regions include Siberia and the Russian North, as well as the Ural Mountains. These regions had an identity that developed from the early modern period and led to Siberian regionalism.
Tourism region
A tourism region is a geographical region that has been designated by a governmental organization or tourism bureau as having common cultural or environmental characteristics. These regions are often named after a geographical, former, or current administrative region or may have a name created for tourism purposes. The names often evoke certain positive qualities of the area and suggest a coherent tourism experience to visitors. Countries, states, provinces, and other administrative regions are often carved up into tourism regions to facilitate attracting visitors.Some of the more famous tourism regions based on historical or current administrative regions include Tuscany in Italy and Yucatán in Mexico. Famous examples of regions created by a government or tourism bureau include the United Kingdom's Lake District and California's Wine Country.
great plains region
Natural resource regions
s often occur in distinct regions. Natural resource regions can be a topic of physical geography or environmental geography, but also have a strong element of human geography and economic geography. A coal region, for example, is a physical or geomorphological region, but its development and exploitation can make it into an economic and a cultural region. Examples of natural resource regions are the Rumaila Field, the oil field that lies along the border or Iraq and Kuwait and played a role in the Gulf War; the Coal Region of Pennsylvania, which is a historical region as well as a cultural, physical, and natural resource region; the South Wales Coalfield, which like Pennsylvania's coal region is a historical, cultural, and natural region; the Kuznetsk Basin, a similarly important coal mining region in Russia; Kryvbas, the economic and iron ore mining region of Ukraine; and the James Bay Project, a large region of Quebec where one of the largest hydroelectric systems in the world has been developed.Religious regions
Sometimes a region associated with a religion is given a name, like Christendom, a term with medieval and renaissance connotations of Christianity as a sort of social and political polity. The term Muslim world is sometimes used to refer to the region of the world where Islam is dominant. These broad terms are somewhat vague when used to describe regions.Within some religions there are clearly defined regions. The Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and others, define ecclesiastical regions with names such as diocese, eparchy, ecclesiastical provinces, and parish.
For example, the United States is divided into 32 Roman Catholic ecclesiastical provinces. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is organized into 33 geographic districts, which are subdivided into circuits. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses regions similar to dioceses and parishes, but uses terms like ward and stake.