What is the Region?
The region is an area of the earth's surface having a homogeneous geographical character inside and distinct from outside at a particular time.
The geographical character may be natural or human impact characteristics.
The following are important features of the region.
Natural geographical characters are:
- Climate
- Examples: Monsoon region, the Mediterranean region, china types climate, savannas region, tundra, equatorial region, etc.
- Topography such as mountains, plains, and plateaus.
- Examples: Himalayan region, Deccan region, Ganga-Brahmputra plain region of India.
- Temperature such as tropical, temperate, frigid, hot, cold, humid, etc.
- Example: Tropical countries, temperate region, taiga, tundra region, desert, etc.
- Vegetation such as dense vegetation cover, forest types, vegetation types, etc.
- Examples: Tropical rainforest, deciduous forest, desert, etc.
Artificial geographical characters are:
- A culture
- Examples: the Indian cultural region, the Arab region, western culture region.
- Language
- Examples: Hindi region, Tamil region, English region, Telugu region, Bengali region, etc.
- Function region
- Examples: Manufacturing region, administrative region, etc
- Planning region
- Examples: BHIMARU region, Flood prone region, Landslide prone region, earthquake-prone region, developed region, least developed region, etc
- Farm practice
- Examples: Intensive farming region, extensive farming region, dairy farming region, commercial cropping region, shifting cultivation region.
- Political such as country, states, districts, etc
- Examples: India, China, Tamil Nadu, Utter Pradesh, etc.
Features of a region:
- The region has a geographical area.
- It has many characters, but the leading character will be the focal character of the region. For example, In the Monsoon region, many kinds of weather phenomena are found but the main geographical character of the region is a monsoon.
- It may have well-defined boundaries or transitional boundaries or frontiers.
- In reality, clear boundaries of the natural region do not exist.
- There are well-defined boundaries of some of the regions such as country, state, districts, etc.
- Boundaries of regions change over time.
- Similarities of homogeneity of the region increase from the periphery to the core area.
- Similarities of homogeneity of the region decrease when we go away from the core area of the region.
Importance of region:
The following are the significances of the region:
- Demarcation of the region helps to study the uniqueness of the geographical characteristics of the region.
- Its help in economic planning
- It helps in mapping of the hazardous area such as :
- Flood-prone
- Earthquake-prone
- Tsunami-prone
- Heatwave prone
- Landslide-prone
- Communicable
- Disease-prone areas
Try to solve the following questions:
- What is the concept of the region? Discuss the types of regions. (2006, 10 marks)
Answer the following multiple-choice questions on the region:
1. "The Region is an area of the earth's Surface", it is the statement of which of the following geographer?
a) Taylor
b) C Aronovic
c) Woolfganag & Joerg
d) G T Ranner
Answer. a) Taylor
2. "A region is a unit area of the earth’s surface differentiated by its specific characteristics", it is the statement of which of the following geographer?
a) Taylor
b) C Aronovic
c) Woolfganag & Joerg
d) F J Monkhouse
Answer. d) F J Monkhouse
3. "Regions are genuine entities, each of which expresses both natural and cultural differentiation from its surroundings", it is the statement of which of the following geographer?
a) Taylor
b) C Aronovic
c) G T Ranner
d) F J Monkhouse
Answer. c) G T Ranner
4. "Region is an are delineated on the basis of homogeneity of land, character, and occupancy", it is the statement of which of the following geographer?
a) Taylor
b) C Aronovic
c) R S Platt
d) F J Monkhouse
Answer. c) R S Platt
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