TERRITORIAL

MORPHOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT Southeast Asia

Spring 2022

STATE TERRITORIAL

MORPHOLOGY

 Shapes of States  Compact – Cambodia

 Protruded – Burma, Thailand

 Elongated – Laos, Vietnam

 Fragmented – Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines

 The impact of shape?  Urban centers

 Transportation networks

 Economic activities

 Distribution of resources

 Political control

SHAPES OF STATES

Cambodia

 A state that has a circular,

oval, or rectangular

territory where the

distance from the center to

any point on the boundary

is the same

 Encloses the maximum

amount of territory in the

minimum length of

boundary

COMPACT STATE

CAMBODIA TRANSPORTATION MAP

POPULATION OF CAMBODIA

Population: 16,449,519 (2018)

Urbanization rate: 23.4%

Urban population: 3,849,187

Rural population: 12,600,332

Major city: Phnom Penh

Population: 1,952,000

Thailand  A type of territorial shape

that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main body of the territory

 Protrusions often suffer from isolation from investment and political power

 Thailand and Myanmar are excellent examples

PROTRUDED STATE

Vietnam  A state whose territory is

decidedly long and narrow; its length is at least six times greater than its average width

 Elongated states often have regional concentrations of population and economic activity and investment

 Vietnam and Laos are both elongated states

ELONGATED STATE

VIETNAM

TRANSPORTATION

MAP

 A state whose territory consists of several separated parts, not a contiguous whole

 The individual parts may be isolated from each other by the land area of other states or by international waters

 Capital of Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

 Philippines and Indonesia are also examples

FRAGMENTED STATE

2022 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK DATA

 Population

 Land area

 GDP – per capita (PPP)

 Number of airports with paved runways

 Number of registered air carriers (RAC)

 Annual passenger traffic on RAC

 Railways – total km

 Roadways (paved) – total km

 Roadways (unpaved) – total km

 Waterways – total km

CALCULATED RATIOS

 Population/land area: also known as Raw Population Density

 Number of airports/land area: also known as Airport Density – an important consideration is the technological sophistication and runway capacity

 Railways (km)/land area: also known as Railway Route Density – importation distinctions are the number of tracks available on each line

 Paved roadways (km)/land area: also known as Road Density – may be misleading if the lane density is not considered

 Waterways (km)/land area: also known as Shipping Potential – an important consideration is the channel depth for commercial vessels

WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT?

 The primary objective of this assignment is to evaluate if

the physical shape of a state influences development and

political control

 If parts of a country are undeveloped as measured by

transportation infrastructure it may be due to distance

from the political capital (where spending decisions are

made) and core area (where most of the population and

businesses are located)

 Lack of development in one part of a country may be due to

other factors such as deserts or mountainous terrain which

is not covered in the scope of this assignment

 For the country sections of this assignment describe the

development conditions of each state and the spatial

locations of the population and infrastructure