Hokkaidô Island

NORTHERNMOST OF the four main islands of JAPAN, Hokkaidô is surrounded by the Sea of Okhotsk to the north and east, the Sea of Japan to the west, and the PACIFIC OCEAN to the south. Its northern location and frigid ocean currents from the Sea of Okhotsk make Hokkaidô’s climate considerably colder and drier than the rest of Japan; the island is known for its long winters. Hokkaidô is about the size of IRELAND, and almost square in shape, roughly 186 mi (300 km) on each side.

Japan and RUSSIA dispute territorial jurisdiction over four small islands to the north of Hokkaidô (Etorofu, Kunashiri, Habomai, and Shikotan). Japan had exercised control over these islands until the former Soviet Union occupied them at the end of World War II. (Jurisdiction over the much larger island of Sakhalin, or Karafuto as the Japanese call it, is split between Japan and Russia.) Hokkaidô was only fully incorporated into Japan in modern times. Until the 19th century, most of Ezo (the previous name for Hokkaidô) was a wilderness, home to the indigenous Ainu people.

Today, the population of Ainu in Hokkaidô has dwindled to about 16,000 from death and assimilation. Many place names in Hokkaidô are in the Ainu language, including the prefecture’s capital, Sapporo, and cities such as Kushiro and Muroran. Japan’s Meiji government renamed the island Hokkaidô in 1869, set national borders encompassing the entire island as part of Japan, and encouraged settlers to move north. Yet Hokkaidô remains sparsely populated by Japanese standards. Its population of about 5.7 million is less than 5 percent of Japan’s overall population. On the other hand, Hokkaidô’s area of 30,315 square mi (78,515 square km) makes it the second-largest island in Japan (after Honshû). The large area of Hokkaidô combined with its relatively small number of inhabitants yields a population density of 186 persons per square mi (72 persons per square km), only about one-fifth the national average.

The forests of Hokkaidô produce lumber and forest products, and the island is the largest source of coal in Japan, followed by southernmost major island of Kyûshû. The waters around Hokkaidô are rich sources of fish (including the local specialty of crab). Agriculture is another important part of the economy, and Hokkaidô provides much of Japan’s food, including potatoes, onions, beans, wheat, and milk and other dairy products. Although the climate is far less suited to wet paddy field agriculture than lands to the south, new seed types permit the growing of rice, the single largest crop in Hokkaidô. In contrast to most of Japan,

Hokkaidô has many dispersed farmsteads, with much larger farms, and employs far more draft animals. Parts of Hokkaidô resemble New England, with broad fields, rolling hills, and grazing cattle. Tourism is another important part of the economy in Hokkaidô. The island is home to several large national parks, with clear deep lakes, snowy mountains, and unspoiled forests. The first Winter Olympics to be held outside Europe or the United States were hosted by Sapporo in 1972. Every February since 1950, Sapporo has also held an annual Snow Festival, featuring ice sculptures and snow statues; the festival attracted 2 million visitors in 2003.

Development of Hokkaidô has lagged behind the rest of Japan, in part because of the isolation of this northern territory and its separation from the main island of Honshû by long distances and the Tsugaru Strait. In 1988, the Seikan Tunnel linked Hokkaidô with Honshû by underground rail, and the Bullet Train (Shinkansen) now has its northern terminus in Hokkaidô. Yet because of the distances involved, air travel remains a common route to Hokkaidô.

Hinterland

FROM THE GERMAN umland, a hinterland is inland territory behind and bordering a town on a coast or river, or the backcountry extending from an inland town. In both cases, the hinterland generally falls under the legal and economic jurisdiction of the same state to which the city belongs. The hinterland supplies a city with food, fuel, raw materials and, in the modern period, labor. It also serves as a market for its manufactured goods and services. The flow of goods and services between the hinterland and city is facilitated by a communication infrastructure of roads, canals, and bridges.

The development of the hinterland is connected with the rise of cities, appearing first with ancient Mesopotamian ceremonial and administrative centers, whose population specialized in the maintenance of ritual, on the one hand, and trade or redistribution, on the other hand. Because the center’s population was occupied primarily with non-food producing activities, it depended entirely for its food and fuel on its agricultural hinterland. The size and prosperity of a ceremonial and administrative city, therefore, depended on the agricultural productivity of its countryside, and tributary relationships were developed to control its resources.

A city that also engaged in long-distance trade, such as the polis of classical Greece (5th to 4th centuries B.C.E.), was less dependent on its hinterland if food could be obtained from farther afield. With expanding trade and a rise in population, the polis outstripped its hinterland’s capacity for food production. The hinterland of classical Athens, Attica, was suited to the cultivation of olives and grapes, used in the production of olive oil and wine, which then were exchanged for grain from the Greek BLACK SEA colonies.

Similarly, Quanzhou, a metropolitan port city in Southeast CHINA’s Quannan region, served as one of the main trading centers in the South China Sea and Southeast Asia from 1000 to 1400. With Quanzhou’s rapid expansion in the 11th and 12th centuries, its agriculturally weak backcountry, the Fujian hinterland, made the transition from food cultivation to that of cash crops such as lichee, sugarcane, and cotton and the manufacture of ceramics and metal products.

This commoditized city-hinterland relationship therefore served to include Greek and Chinese farmers on marginal arable lands in the international market. Additionally, premodern trading centers that lacked even agriculturally poor hinterlands, such as Timbuktu in West Africa or many of the early medieval coastal trading sites in northern Europe, either declined or were abandoned altogether when trade routes shifted away from these centers.

Even an agriculturally rich hinterland benefited from its relationship with the city. For example, the introduction of more animals to provision estates and pull the recently invented carriages of the elite in 17thand 18th-century PARIS meant that more fodder had to be brought to the city. Hinterland peasants responded by planting fields with more oats and meadows with forage crops, delivering these products to the city and carting away the manure from urban stalls, which they would use in turn to fertilize nitrogen-poor fields. Paris basin hinterland farmers thus took advantage of the opportunities offered by economic changes in their core region and thus generally fared better than the outland French peasantry.

Hindu Kush

HINDU KUSH (or Hindukush) is the main mountain range in the Central Asian state of AFGHANISTAN. Hindu Kush is the westernmost extension of the Pamir mountain, the Karakoram (K-2), and the western HIMALAYAS. The origin of the term Hindu Kush (which translates as “Hindu Killer” or “Killer of Hindus”) is a point of controversy among scholars. Three possibilities have been put forward in this context. One, the mountains concerned are tribute to Indian slaves who perished in the difficult mountainous terrain while being transported from India to slave markets of Central Asia. Two, the name is merely a corruption of Hindu Koh, the pre-Islamic name of the mountains that divided Hindu-populated southern Afghanistan from non-Hindu northern Afghanistan. The third possibility is that the name is a posited Avestan appellation meaning “water mountain.”

The mountains of the Hindu Kush system diminish in height as they stretch in a westward direction. Toward the middle near Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, they extend from 14,763 to 19,685 ft (4,500 to 6,000 m); in the west, they attain heights of 11,482 to 13,123 ft (3,500 to 4,000 m). The average altitude of the Hindu Kush is about 14,700 ft (4,500 m). Th Hindu Kush mountain range stretches about 600 mi (966 km) laterally, and its median north-south measurement is about 149 mi (240 km). Only about 373 mi (600 km) of the Hindu Kush system is called the Hindu Kush mountains. The rest of the system consists of numerous smaller mountain ranges, including the Salang, Koh-e-Baba, Koh-e-Paghman, Spin Ghar, Sian Koh, Suleiman, Selseleh-e-band-e-Turkistan, and Koh-e-Khwaja Mohammad. 

The western Safid Koh, Doshakh and the Siah Band are known as the Paropamisus by scholars of Central Asia. Three rivers flow from the Hindu Kush mountain range, namely the Helmand River, the Hari Rud, and the Kabul River that also provide water to major cities and regions of Afghanistan. Huge caravans pass through high passes (kotal) transecting the mountains. The most important mountain pass in the Hindu Kush range is the Kotal-e-Salang, which links Kabul and points south to northern part of Afghanistan. Before the Salang road was constructed, the most famous passes in the Hindu Kush region were the Khyber Pass (3,369 ft or 1,027 m) and the Kotal-e-Lataband (8,199 ft or 2,499 m).

The roads through the Salang and Tang-e-Gharu passes are critical strategic routes between Afghanistan and RUSSIA and other old Soviet republics. The Hindu Kush is sparsely populated and inhabitants subsist year-round on livestock and crops. The Kalash people are one of the main inhabitant groups of Hindu Kush and claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great. They have their own distinctive laws, religion, and culture.

Heartland Theory

THE HEARTLAND THEORY was developed by Scottish geographer, Sir Halford J. MACKINDER. He read his paper “The Geographical Pivot of History” before the Royal Geographical Society in London in 1904, and soon afterward published his views on the influence of geography on politics in the Geographical Journal.

Mackinder’s argument introduced into POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY the view that the globe could develop into two power blocs. The center of world power lay in the “heartland.” This was roughly the territory east of the DANUBE RIVER to the URAL MOUNTAINS. Mackinder claimed that whoever unified and dominated Central and Eastern Europe would be able to control the three continents of the “World Island”—Europe, Asia, and Africa. His hypothesis, which became famous, was: “Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island. Who rules the World Island commands the world.” The other power bloc, because of what he viewed as the relative decline of sea power, was the “maritime lands.”

Mackinder had rejected the theory of sea power as the key to world domination proposed in The Influence of Sea Power upon History by Captain Alfred T. Mahan of the U.S. Navy. Mahan developed a number of factors of state power, such as geographical position, extent of territory, population, and national and governmental character to explain state power. Mahan had used his study to propose policies for the American government to follow. These included annexing the Hawaiian Islands, controlling the CARIBBEAN SEA, and building a canal across PANAMA. Theodore Roosevelt was to use these ideas as the basis of his foreign policy.

In contrast, Mackinder claimed that land-based power was increasing in scope because of improvements in communications, transportation, and armaments. The heartland power would be the ultimate land power that would be impossible to expel from its natural fortress. He believed that there was a Eurasian core that would be impregnable to naval power. As the center of a great fertile landmass, it would be difficult to penetrate with sea power and easily defended with land forces.

Mackinder’s views were read and discussed by many people immediately. His hypothesis soon became one of the most intensely debated ideas in the history of geography. Mackinder’s views were eagerly accepted by a number of German politicians. In particular by Karl Haushofer, who with others adopted a geopolitik program. Their views influenced Adolf Hitler, who used them as a rationale for conquering Europe.

Among those who disagreed with Mackinder’s theory was N.J. Spykman. He argued that Mackinder had exaggerated the Heartland’s potential for power. The real power was not in the “pivot,” as Mackinder had termed the heartland, but in what Mackinder had called the “inner crescent” or the “rimland” in Spykman’s terminology. Spykman’s hypothesis became, “He who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia; Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.”

Missing from the heartland theories of Mackinder and Spykman was air power. In 1943 Mackinder dismissed air power as a technological change that would make a difference in the balance of power. However, in 1950 A.P. de Seversky argued that the key to American survival and supremacy was air power. Another critic of Mackinder was A.R. Hall. In 1955, Hall argued that Mackinder had ignored the existence of another “heartland,” namely the Anglo-American alliance.

In 1956, D.W. Meinig proposed changes to Mackinder’s heartland theory and to the rimland theory. His criticism included changes to the definitions and criteria of Mackinder’s theory. In 1964, D.J.M. Hooson extended the heartland theory by identifying the “core” areas, such as the industrial centers. In the last quarter of the 20th century, two major groups debated and extended Mackinder’s ideas. The first group was composed of specialists in strategic studies. One important representative of this approach was Colin S. Grey, who published The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era (1979). The other group was composed of scholars in traditional POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. These included authors such as Geoffrey Parker (Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century 1985), among others.

After World War II, the Soviet Union effectively controlled the heartland. Mackinder, however, had proposed ideas of an Atlantic community in 1924 that developed into the NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO). It addition the Cold War policy of containment of communism was, in effect, a siege of “fortress” heartland. Global politics of the 20th century were deeply influenced by Mackinder’s geopolitical vision. The War on Terror is also being waged with a geopolitical eye on the Middle Eastern “rimland.”

Heard and McDonald Islands

TWO OF THE MOST isolated spots on the globe, the Heard and McDonald Islands have only been visited a few times, and much remains to be discovered about them. The islands are located at the bottom of the world, where the INDIAN OCEAN meets the Antarctic seas, and have recently been declared a United Nations UNESCO World Heritage site due to their pristine natural habitat, nearly untouched by human hands.

The first sighting of the larger island, Heard, is attributed to the British captain Peter Kemp in 1833, but also to the American captain John J. Heard, in 1853. Much smaller McDonald island, 27 mi (43.5 km) to the west, was spotted a year later by British captain William McDonald. Hunters, in the 1850s to 1870s, nearly depleted the islands of their population of varieties of seals (notably elephant seal and fur seal), king penguins and whales, but these populations have now mostly returned to their former numbers. To further protect this wildlife, the government of AUSTRALIA established the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve in 2002. Thirty-four species of bird come here to breed, including penguins, albatrosses, and giant petrels. Human visitors are tightly restricted to occasional scientific expeditions.

The islands, about 1,000 mi (1,700 km) off the coast of ANTARCTICA, are the most volcanically active in the sub-Antarctic region. They are rises on the Kerguélen Plateau, which also includes the Îles Kerguélens, about 434 mi (700 km) to the northwest (territory of FRANCE). Neither of the islands has much vegetation, though kelp is abundant offshore. Rain or snow and extensive cloud cover keep the islands very wet most of the year and are accompanied by nearly constant high winds. Heard Island is a circular volcanic cone, dominated by the Big Ben Massif topped by Mawson Peak, the only active volcano in Australian territory. A mountainous headland extends 6.2 mi (10 km) to the northwest (Laurens Peninsula), connected by a narrow ridge little more than 330 ft (100 m) wide. Heard is surrounded by numerous outlying rocks, islets and reefs. A few kilometers offshore are the Shag Islands. 

About 80 percent of Heard is glaciated, with ice up to 495 ft (150 m) deep. Ice cliffs make up much of the coast, adding to the island’s inaccessibility. The Mc-Donald Island group is made up of one volcanic peak and several smaller rocky islets (Flat Island, Meyer Rock).

Much smaller than Heard, McDonald has been landed on only twice in its history, and very little is known about it. In fact, the size of McDonald seems to have recently doubled—from .39 square mi (1 square km) to an estimated 1 square mi (2.45 square km)— through a volcanic eruption sometime between 1997 and 2001, when changes were detected on a satellite photograph. It is believed that this eruption is continuing, radically altering the shape of McDonald Island.

Hawaii

HAWAII IS a U.S. state located in the central PACIFIC OCEAN near the EQUATOR and consists of eight major islands: Hawaii, Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau; 129 smaller islands are also part of Hawaii. Hawaii is not the equivalent of the Hawaiian Islands or the Hawaiian Chain, which includes other islands, such as Midway, that are not part of the state of Hawaii. At its greatest expanse, Hawaii extends for 1,523 mi (2,600 km); it has a total land mass of 6,423 square mi (16,729 square km). The highest point is Mauna Kea at more than 13,796 feet (4,205 m) and the lowest point is at sea level. The capital city is Honolulu on the island of Oahu. The population of Hawaii is 1,211,537 (2000 census), and its largest city is Honolulu (876,156). The state population is evenly divided by gender and has a density of 188.6 persons per square mile. The median age in 2000 was 36.2 years.

The island of Hawaii is the largest of the islands and has two active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea; it supports extensive agricultural activity. Maui is called the Valley Island because of the dominance of two volcanic mountains; while a haven for tourists, Maui also has sustained valuable production of sugar. Kahoolawe is a small, uninhabited island near Maui. Lanai is the center of the pineapple business. Molokai, also near Maui, is an island of canyons and mountains; its central region is fertile for crops. Oahu has two mountain ranges, the Koolau Range in the east and the Waianae Range in the west. While supporting an expanding metropolitan Honolulu, Oahu is an agricultural center with sugar and pineapple plantations.

Kauai, known as the Garden Island, is rugged; its Mount Waialeale has the greatest rainfall (460 in or 1,168 cm) per year on Earth. Niihau is rather arid; it is privately owned by the Robinson family of Kauai. Hawaii’s gross state product in 2000 was $39.1 billion. The economy is based on tourism ( $10.9 billion), U.S. military defense spending ($4.4 billion), and the sugar and pineapple businesses ($276.1 million.) The Hawaiian state government is interested in diversifying the economy and has invested in developing science and technology, film and television production, sports, oceanic research and development, education, and floral and specialty food products. In trade, Hawaii transacted $3.31 billion in merchandise in 2000 and had exports totaling $407.7 million. Imported petroleum products provide more than 90 percent of Hawaii’s energy requirements (2000).

Originally settled by Polynesians more than 1,500 years ago, Captain James Cook was the first European to visit Hawaii (1778). During the 19th century the native Hawaiian population (estimated about 300,000) was decimated by diseases imported by European and American adventurers, businessmen, and missionaries. 

By 1900, the native population had been reduced to about 70,000. During the same time, American immigrants overthrew the native government and moved Hawaii to annexation by the UNITED STATES. American expansion in Hawaii and the PHILIPPINES was denounced as imperialism; for the most part, American culture absorbed Hawaiian culture, although recent years have witnessed a resurgent native Hawaii culture. Americans viewed Hawaii as strategically and economically significant; the American navy centered its Pacific headquarters in Hawaii, and American businesses reaped profits from sugar, pineapple, and other fruit products. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent war against Japan led to an expanded American presence in the Pacific.

During the second half of the 20th century, the United States relinquished its naval bases in the Philippines and became dependent upon Hawaii as the focal point for its Pacific fleet. Further, the naval observatories on Hawaii are important astronomical centers for research and satellite management.

Historical Geography

GEOGRAPHERS SEEK TO understand the world by examining spatial relationships. The types of questions they might ask are: Why are things located where they are? How are places different from each other? How are places like each other? How are places interconnected with each other? How do people affect their natural environment and how does the natural environment affect people? In many instances, the answers to these questions are related directly to what the world is like today.

For historical geographers, these questions are adapted to consider the role of time. For example, a historical geographer might ask questions such as: How did people, things, and landscape elements come to be located where they are? How did a place come to be like other places? How did it develop differently from other places? How have people been affected by the natural environment? How have they altered the environment as well? In short, historical geography might be described as the study of past places. Some of the earliest attempts at what might be considered historical geography are rooted in ancient GREECE. Although typically identified as a historian, Herodotus has often been regarded by geographers as one of their own. Based upon his own extensive travels and keen observations, Herodotus developed a sophisticated understanding of how the processes of physical geography played out over extended periods of time, resulting in what was his contemporary landscape.

While individual travel and exploration aided in the development of the historical geographies of Herodotus, the expansion of Islam further developed the field of historical geography. By the mid-8th century C.E., religious conquests had brought northern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic control. What transpired was an exchange of ideas between East and West. At the same time, Muslim concepts such as the use of the decimal system made their way into Europe, and Greek and Roman texts were translated into Arabic for the first time. Like the Greeks, Muslim scholars such as Al-Biruni incorporated the role of time within the processes of physical geography. In his study of India, Al-Biruni attempted to explain the formation and distribution of alluvial deposits, predating the development of similar ideas in Europe by centuries. Considered perhaps the most significant historical geographer of the medieval Muslim world, Ibn-Khaldun has been cited as the first to explicitly link the physical environment to human activity and culture through time—thereby establishing the human-environment connection so crucial to the broader field of geography as well.

Nineteenth-century European historical geographers continued to study the relationship between humans and the natural environment with respect to time, but were furthered in their research by theoretical developments in the biological and social sciences. In 1859, Charles Darwin introduced the notion of natural descent in his historic volume, The Origin of Species. Drawing in part upon Thomas Malthus’s ideas concerning population growth and the limitations of the natural environment, Darwin concluded that environments were capable of supporting a limited number of organisms and only those organisms best biologically suited to an environment would be able to remain in that environment and successfully reproduce. Those less well suited to the environment would ultimately face extinction because of competition from better adapted organisms.