Geography: Realms, Regions and Concepts
Points to Ponder from De Blij “Regions” 15th EditionSome western European countries accepted relatively large numbers of religious Muslim immigrants at a time when secularization among native populations reached a peak.NATO’s main purpose is to provide security to its member-states in Europe plus the United States and Canada, yet its most important military operation is in Afghanistan.In northern European countries, the south tends to be more developed than the north, whereas in southern European countries the north tends to be more developed than the south.There are only two states in the world that share the same country code for international telephone traffic: the United States and Canada.Whereas more than 70 percent of Canada’s population lives within 200 kilometers (125 miles) of  the northern U.S. border, only 12 percent of the Mexican population lives that close to the Southern U.S. border.Brazil is well on its way to displacing the United States as the world’s biggest food exporter; it aims to do so by 2015.Of the ten fastest-growing economies of the world during the first decade of this century, six were located in Sub-Saharan Africa.The popular uprisings across the Arab World in 2011 involved disproportionate numbers of young people and were in no small part facilitated through the use of the internet and cell-phone communication.India’s IT sector accounts for one-quarter of all exports, but employs only 2 percent of the national workforce.If India goes ahead with plans to reserve 33 percent of its Parliament seats for women, it will have almost twice as much female representation as the U.S. Congress.In the two decades between 1990 and 2010, China’s economy vaulted from tenth place in the world to second.The area surrounding China’s Pearl River Estuary has a manufacturing workforce larger than that of the entire United States.