PICTURE THIS GEOGRAPHY PERSPECTIVE SUMMARY

PICTURE THIS GEOGRAPHY PERSPECTIVE SUMMARY

The following list serves as a comparison of geographical and political divisions of the world. Its purpose is a comparison, to give perspective to some regions that are not usually treated together in the same analysis. These include: acquisitions, arable lands, bays, boroughs, accessions, channels, continents, counties, departments, deserts, disputed areas, federal lands, gulfs, hemispheres, islands, lakes, national monuments, national parks, national preserves, oceans, parishes, provinces, seas, states, straits, territories, territorial seas, and other areas. Usually, islands less than 10 sq. mi. are not included on most lists. There are actually thousands more individual islands, landforms and political divisions than those listed, but this list includes those normally shown in similar form elsewhere, plus some comparisons never seen anywhere else. Any errors you may discover are probably mine, as the combinations necessary for building the list make errors more likely. The world’s arable lands, if consolidated into one place, would occupy an area approximately equal to the size of Russia. As a global average, there are approximately .5554 arable acres-per-person. There are 3098 boroughs-counties- parishes and other similar political units within the 50 states of the United States. They are an average of 1140 sq. mi. each. The average U.S. county is therefore larger than the 29 smallest countries in the world, and the smallest U.S. county, San Francisco, is still larger than 5 countries. The first 286 U.S. “county” divisions shown on this list, if regarded as individual countries, would comprise an area between the 60th position and the 163rd position out of the 193 nations of the world. So that a mental picture of the global areas becomes more easily recalled and grasped, the following examples are given: Did you know that Iceland is larger than Virginia? Did you know that Indiana, Hungary, Jordan and Portugal are the same size? You probably know that San Bernardino is the largest county in the U.S., but did you know that it is also larger than over 100 countries? The Yukon division in Alaska is larger than Japan. San Bernardino County in California is larger than Bosnia. Long Island NY is larger than Rhode Island. Perhaps it is better to think of this list as a helpful way to picture some of the more well-known political and geographical areas, whose sizes may compare with areas more familiar to you. This is a very short list of political and geographical areas of the earth. There is no complete list in existence, as that would encompass hundreds of thousands of entries, and not suit our purposes. This shortened version allows comparisons to be made with familiar North American and other world areas. Only the largest 318 counties/divisions are shown on this list. It should be noted that there are about 2780 “county” divisions in the U.S. which are not on this list, of which each is less than 2000 square miles in area, but which still are much larger than 18 countries and other autonomous regions. In addition, only a few of the largest political divisions within countries are shown for comparison, while in-fact, these various political and geographical subdivisions number into the thousands, and of course, there are several hundred thousand individual islands, groups, islets, reefs, etc. that are too numerous to mention. My intention is to provide a reference tool beneficial to the student, traveler and historian. Perspective, then, is the worthy goal toward which this study is aiming. As the list grows, and the sizes become smaller, the temptation is to write-off such seemingly inconsequential areas, until you remember that areas which comprise only a few acres or square miles may contain vibrant countries, cities and political infrastructures such as Liechtenstein, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Hong Kong, Monaco and Vatican City. Imagine then, if you will, that someday even smaller areas than these will contain similar entities, and it follows that every area should be considered on its own merits as well as for its potentialities. When you see, for example, that Sumba is approximately the size of more well-known locations, such as Jamaica, Kosovo and Ellef Ringnes, this should awaken the sleeping geographer within you to discover something about Sumba, its location, etc. Although there are currently only 194 countries recognized, there are 233 shown with asterisks, indicating 39 additional autonomous regions in varying stages of political independence, and which may, in our lifetimes, be recognized as independent nations. Most of Los Angeles County has a low-density population when compared with Tokyo, Seoul and Mumbai. Still, if North America had an average population density like Los Angeles County, it would hold the entire population of the world, leaving the rest of the planet available for growing food. For those who are still not convinced that our planet is large enough to provide for our nutritional needs, I offer the following example—if all of the world’s people lived in a place with a population density like San Francisco County, they would all fit within Venezuela, leaving the rest of the world available for agriculture. A further example for the unconvinced would be Hong Kong. If the entire population of the world were to live in an area with a population density equal to that of Hong Kong, they would easily fit into an area the size of Panama. Are you picturing this yet? For the record, I would never wish for all of us to live in North America, Venezuela, or Panama, but I hope that these examples serve to explain why I feel that we can solve our nutritional shortages. To help keep things straight, the following designations will apply: countries=*, states=^, “counties”=+. The Sahara Desert is approximately the size of Canada. Do any of you look at the Sahara and see vast agricultural opportunity? Depending on how you look at it, U.S. federal land holdings, if considered as a separate country, would be the world’s 10th largest nation, or Western Australia, by itself, would be the world’s 10th largest country. Let’s not just make better use of the arable land we already have, but let’s increase the amount of arable land through zoning, desalinization plants, soil amendments, wind breaks, catch-basins, land conservation, irrigation, green-housing, terracing, trellising, rooftop, patio and home gardening. By the way, let’s stop building on top of our best agricultural lands, and let’s stop building on river bottoms, flood plains and coastal flood zones that are at obvious risk of flooding. These are obviously much-better-used for agriculture. I tend to favor more populist governmental policies of land-distribution, such as that practiced in the settlement of the Midwest in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and in other places like Australia in the mid-1960’s. For example, the 1,020,780 square miles of U.S. land currently under the control of the federal government could be equally divided among the nation's 305,000,000 people, (which works out to about 2 acres per man, woman and child), and the revenues derived from this land as well as the ultimate control could be assigned to the people of the United States on a per-family-unit sectional basis. There are those who would argue that governments are better-able to decide issues of land-usage, and there are some cases where that is true, but far more often, governmental ownership of the land discourages progress, independence and accountability. Globally, there are about 5 acres per person, which when evenly divided by family group, would encourage the development and diversity of land that would otherwise remain unusable and unused. Whether the land is developed individually or governmentally, the object is to make the best possible use of the land that is available, and at least so far, the current policy of landholding has left billions of acres under and undeveloped, while there is domestic poverty and global starvation, while Nero fiddles and Rome burns, and everyone sits around waiting for someone else to do something about it. Let’s examine this problem and make some plans to deal with it! While we are addressing the problem of population versus land area, it is often stated that there are too many people and not enough land to go around, and that this situation is only getting worse. One of the suggestions for dealing with this problem has been population control, which we are told will solve the problem of food-shortage. Fewer mouths to feed sounds alright until we consider that there will also be fewer hands and brains to accomplish the task. Those mechanistic infrastructures which are necessary for the accomplishment of agricultural improvements require the human ingenuity and manpower necessary for their implementation. What about the ever-present dangers of plague and climate change, which until very recently in human history were responsible for the annihilation of huge portions of humanity? Those who suggest and fund studies of population control should direct their efforts toward more equitable distribution of land and capital development and stop throwing a risky monkey wrench into global biology. (Note: This comparative summary list will follow as soon as formatting is completed.)

Mark Overt Skilbred