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Geography For Development

Kamala Sarup - 7/23/2007

Geography is important in determining whether a country has any prospects of becoming developed. Countries that have poor transportation facilities must devote much of the acquired technology to improving it. This was done in the formative years in the U.S. Otherwise, supplies cannot reach producers and products cannot reach customers cheaply enough to be bought by those with modest incomes. Mountainous countries and those without access to navigable rivers and oceans are especially disadvantaged in their quest for wealth, since the capital and technologies to "move mountains" and "tame water" are prohibitively expensive.

Even within countries with relatively few mountains and many waterways, such as in the US, the government of which has spent enormous sums of money, effort and transportation to reduce the inequalities of location, the poorest people today are located in mountainous. In the US, the state counties located in the Appalachian, Rocky, and Ozark mountains are the poorest. In contrast, those counties located in watered plains are the richest. Scanning the U.N. list from top to bottom, the only developed country that has too many mountains and too few navigable waterways is Switzerland.

However, its geographical disadvantage is offset by its geographical location at former trade routes between rich countries that allowed it to accumulate sufficient capital and technology to "move mountains" (or, at least penetrate them with tunnels and cross the valleys with bridges) and prosper. The Balkan countries in southeastern Europe enjoyed no such advantage and suffered economic stagnation.

Switzerland also has the advantages of culture, economy, and polity. But we find nations with too many mountains and too few navigable waterways: Tajikistan, Nepal, Mongolia, and Bhutan. If Afghanistan and Tibet were included, they would, no doubt, also fall into this group for the same reasons. Therefore, the geography of a country is an important determinant of its ability to achieve greater wealth.

In particular, countries with too many mountains and too few waterways are unlikely to become developed relative to other countries, although they certainly will become absolutely developed because of the inevitable trade of cheaper goods and services provided by their neighbors. However, absolute money breeds envy by its citizens who see the richer countries enjoying goods and services which they cannot afford, and this envy may lead to revolution or emigration, or both.

Those nations that have a developed educational system,whose leaders prefer to teach children how to read and interpret mathematics, science, engineering, and programming may achieve material wealth, because technologies depend on education.

In summary, the kind of economy and polity determine the ability of the countries to become the successes.

It is clear that a country with an unfavorable geography, or economy or polity is severely handicapped to make sufficient advances that increase the living standards of its people. It is likely to remain poor, despite the enthusiastic and sanguine projections of its leaders, planners and would-be leaders, the revolutionaries. Furthermore, countries with a combination of unfavorable geographies, economies and polities are doomed to remain relatively poor.