17 North Africa & the Middle East: Political Geography I – Borders

“I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.”

• Howard Zinn, American historian

The noted geographer Samuel Whittemore Boggs designed a format for categorizing borders. His system was simple and brief, but logical and useful. First, some borders are physiographic. The borders use features of the physical landscape (physio-) to draw (-graphic) borders between countries or territories or any regions.

The most obvious of these physical landscape features is the river. Rivers are more useful as borders than other types of streams, for they are larger and longer than creeks, brooks, rills, etc. Additionally, rivers are more like geometric lines than other elements of the physical landscape. Technically, rivers are not geometric lines, for these are those lines are defined as a straight set of points extending in opposite directions, while a river displays a winding geometry. Nevertheless, rivers provide something casually like a line to determine which side of the river belongs to which territory. Sometimes mountain peaks can be the points that are connected by lines to create borders.

In NAME, as deserts are the dominant landscape, rivers are uncommon, but greatly valued. Thus, rivers are not common as borders in NAME. Even so, a notable example of river as a border in NAME is the Shatt al-Arab, the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, that for a short distance serves as the border between Iran and Iraq. NAME does have a few mountains, but not serving as borders.

Second, a border may be anthropogeographic. The prefix anthro- points us to anthropology, thereby indicating that the border reflects something of the human landscape. This border may be something constructed by people. The anthropogeographic parallel to a river would be a canal, although canals would be rare as borders. The Great Wall of China served as a type of border separating realms. This type of anthropogeographic border would not be expected in NAME.

Alternatively, an anthropogeographic border may be reflective of ethnic concentrations of population. For instance, the boundaries of a nation-State (where an ethnic group matches a country) are considered as anthropogeographic borders, for they reflect a spatial division between nationalities. In NAME, this type of border is not common. For one thing, the overarching pattern of the region is Arabic, so no individual country holds all of the Arab population. Other countries have a mixed variety of mainly Arabs within their borders. For instance, Jordan has an Arab population, but it is considered about 70% Jordanian, 13% Syrian, plus Palestinians, Egyptians, and others.

Third, well what is left? First, we had the natural landscape. Second, we had some version of the human landscape. What else is there? Geometry! Yes, the remaining option is a straight line or arc. Something has to separate countries (or other territories), so treaties or other agreements use geometry to do so. Usually, a straight line is the results, sometimes referencing lines of latitude or longitude. As the first two types of borders were uncommon in this region, not surprisingly the geometric border is common. The border between Libya and Egypt mainly is a straight line. The border between Libya and Chad comprises two connected diagonal lines. Yemen is separated from Oman by a single straight line. And so on …

While this border categorization from Boggs works quite well, it does not over the only perspective on border classification. Prominent geographer Richard Hartshorne provides a different border system based on time.

First, there are borders which were established before the corresponding territories were settled, whereas these lands have remained unsettled. These are the pioneer borders. Indeed, NAME does have these types of borders, logically so, as desert areas often have remained unpopulated. The border between Libya and Egypt is geometric, but it also is pioneer, lacking in settlement. This is an example of the possible combination or complementarity of these two classification systems.

Second, some lands were delineated before settlement; however, those lands gained populations over time. These antecedent borders should be tolerable, for the lines were known features that arriving migrants could recognize and abide. In desert lands, these borders too are possible, if desert lands progressively gain population.

Third, the logic follows that other borders were drawn after lands were settled. Subsequent borders are those that respected the existing circumstances of those territories that the lines then divide. Generally, this means that ethnic groups in the region remained intact, as boundaries did not intersect existing ethnic geographic distributions.

Fourth, superimposed borders also were delineated after lands were settled; however, ethnic populations were not respected, instead being split into different countries and/or being paired with other ethnic groups within countries. Often these types of borders are the results of wars, where the victorious side got the spoils of war, including the ability to redraw borders within the defeated region. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire created examples of superimposed borders. For instance, the Kurds did not get their own countries, but their territory was split into adjacent pieces of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, named for British and French statesmen, did most of this work. The superimposed border often serves as an irritant for local populations, not uncommonly provoking demands for resolution, violent attempts to gain that change, and/or violence between ethnic groups within said region.

Fifth, the relic border now is without time, having passed from existence. History recalls these borders, noting their former locations. Of course, other borders must have existed in unrecorded history; however, by being unrecorded, obviously these borders cannot be cited now.

These systems of Boggs and Hartshorne are not antagonistic, but may work together. A superimposed border may be geometric, as a line cutting across an ethnic group. A subsequent border could be anthropogeographic, as an ethnic group’s territory is respected as new borders leave it intact. A relic border could have been physiographic, where a river once served but no longer remains the boundary.

North Africa and the Middle East may have examples of all of these borders. Nevertheless, geometric borders are quite common. Superimposed borders have been problematic, as we will see in our chapter on border conflicts.

Cited and additional bibliography:

Boggs, Samuel Whittemore. International Boundaries: A Study of Boundary Functions and Problems. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940.