Boundaries & Frontiers

Frontier	Boundary
1. Historical Concept	1. Modern Contemporary
2. Natural	2. Mostly Anthropogenic
3. Areal Concept	3. Linear Concept
4. Outer Orientation	4. Inner orientation It means across the boundary the forces are absent like economic forces, political forces, and inside the boundary such forces has higher intensity & magnitude.
5. Frontier Signifies centrifugal forces. It means the politico-cultural realm can further extend into the frontier.	5. Boundaries are confinement, signifying the centripetal forces.
6. Frontiers have no political dispute.	6. Boundaries are vary often disputable by the rival nations.
7. Frontier generally have mountainous area, desert, marshes, etc. Thus, inhabitable.	7. But boundaries have no such criteria.
8. Frontiers are dynamic.	8. Boundaries are static because once fixed,they hardly change.

Theories on Boundaries and Frontiers

1. Core Periphery Model(by Friedmann)
   • He suggested that the cultural, political & socio-economic phenomena have tendency to centralise at the core. Thus, core is always highly developed and periphery part remains sparse.
   • Thus, core area develop into cultural region, or political region or nationality and the periphery region become frontier because of such core.
2. Organismic Theory
   • It is based on Social Darwinism, which considers state as an organism and territory as an the living space.
   • This theory was proposed by Hashoufer and he considered boundary as dynamic, which must grow for the growth of the state.
3. British Imperialist Theory
   • This theory assumes boundaries to be fixed but the colonial boundaries can be extended. 
   • Thus, it demarcated the political sovereign boundary with the imperialist boundaries.
4. Contractual Theory
   • Most of the recent political boundaries has been demarcated by contracts, agreement, treaties,or bilateral agreements.
   • Thus, boundary is political & man made. There are 3 methods for such boundary:
   • 1. Arbitration
        • By 3rd party intervention
     2. Arbitrary
        • eg. In the deserts or in the frontiers where there are no dispute, such boundary are straight line.
     3. Contractual
        • either by bilateral or multilateral agreement or through UN or any other means.

Types of Boundaries

• Genetic Classification of the boundaries
• 1. Antecedent Boundaries
     • The boundaries that has been drawn before the cultural-political realm.
     • Such boundaries were non-contentious. 
     • eg. N. Africa, the state boundaries of USA.
  2. The Subsequent Boundaries
     • When the cultural realm are fully developed & political boundaries are contentious.
     • Such boundaries are irregular or amorphic boundaries.
     • eg. the countries of Europe
  3. Superimposed Boundaries
     • When a political boundary divides a homogenous cultural region and across the boundary the people with similar ethnicity are found.
     • eg. Pok
  4. Relict Boundaries
     • Historical boundaries which only exists in the books
     • eg. Persia, the boundary between east & west Germany.
• Geometrical Division
• 1. Linear: 
  2. Latitudinal: eg. US & Canada
  3. Longitudinal: eg. Alaska & Canada, Eastern & western USA
  4. Arced/Curved: Boundary in Libya, Sudan & Algeria
• Based on the Nature of the Boundary
• 1. Physiographic