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Gapminder Screencast and Analysis

Life expectancy is the expected number of years someone in a particular place is projected to live.  It is measured in years.  Life expectancy is a food indicator of economic development because it provides a look into how a place fights diseases and deals with health issues.  Many factors contribute to life expectancy including health care and the economy of a place making it a good way to look into economic development.  The amount of internet users measures how many people use the internet out of every 100.  The internet is an important piece of technology which helps places stay interconnected regardless of the space between them making it a good indication of economic development.  Infant mortality rate measures the number of infants under the age of 1 that die per year per 1,000 live births.  It is a good indicator of economic development because it displays a country's health care system, their ability to fight diseases, and other causes of death like malnutrition, which can be caused by poor economic development.  GDP per capita measures the average income per person in a place in U.S. dollars.  This is an important category because income is significant when determining economic development.

On the first graph in general, more developed countries are in the upper right corner and they get less developed as you move down and to the left.  The group in the upper right consists of countries from many different regions across the world; U.S. and Canada from North America, many European countries, South Korea, Japan, Qatar, and many others.  The less developed side of the scale mostly consists of Asian, African, and some South American countries.  The biggest outlier in this data was Qatar because it is a very prosperous country from a region that has not had as much success.  While Qatar has a large number of internet users and a high life expectancy, most of the countries in the Middle-East have a long ways to go to catch up to Qatar economically.  Another outlier on this graph is Cuba because it has such a high life expectancy but a low number of internet users compared to other countries with the same life expectancy.  While Cuba has the same life expectancy as the U.S., the U.S. has 55 more users of the internet out of 100 people.  This statistic makes Cuba unique because it does not show the direct correlations between the two statistics.  The second graphic illustrates how average income is not the only statistic that matters when it comes to economic development.  Some Middle-Eastern countries such as Qatar have very high average incomes but their infant mortality rate is not nearly as low as some European countries.  This graph proves that although GDP per capita is important, there are many other factors like infant mortality rate that determine economic development.

From 1981-2011 in the first gapminder, life expectancy and the average number of internet users both increase significantly.  Life expectancy increases steadily the whole time especially in less developed countries that began much lower that the more developed countries.  It increases because of improvements in medicine, technology, scientific knowledge, health care, and sanitation.  In some countries such as Rwanda, where the life expectancy drops very low for a short period of time, they most likely experienced a civil war or maybe natural disasters in other countries.  The increase in the number of internet users occurs around the year 2000 in developed countries. This is the time when the internet began diffusing through hierarchical diffusion starting in the core and is now starting to diffuse to the semi-periphery and periphery.  This number increases very rapidly but slows down as they near the maximum number of users out of 100.  The second gapminder graph began with just a few countries in 1800 but started growing as more countries started to record this data.  As countries develop in this cycle, their GDP per capita goes up and their infant mortality rate goes down.  The increase in GDP per capita is because of higher waged jobs as people in developing countries move out of the primary sector and into the secondary or tertiary.  This transition would not be possible without the industrial revolution (2nd agricultural revolution/2nd urban revolution) which helped farmers to grow a surplus of food which allowed other people to get different jobs in the city.  The decrease in a country's infant mortality rate over time is attributed to medical and technological advances that help with diseases, malnutrition, and the birthing process.  As countries gain capital, they are able to afford better health care, better health education, and better medicine.  Therefore as a country develops and gains more capital, their infant mortality rate goes down because of the ability to fund better health care.

Crossing the Lines GIS Activity

The first new state boundary that was created in my GIS Crossing the Lines project was the boundary that unified North Korea and South Korea into one country.  This country, Korea, is located in East Asia, and it erases the dividing line between North and South Korea.  The new boundary surrounds modern day North Korea and South Korea.  This proposed country borders China to the north, the Sea of Japan to the east, the Yellow Sea to the west, and the East China Sea to the south.  The new boundaries for Somalia and Somaliland are different because they divide what is currently Somalia.  This proposed boundary for Somaliland is north of Ethiopia, to the southeast of Djibouti, south of the Gulf of Aden, and to the west of proposed Somalia.  The line dividing Somaliland from Somalia runs along the 49E, from the Gulf of Aden to latitude 9ºN, and then diagonally west along the latitude 8ºN.

The reunification of Korea would be difficult but it is still a possible event.  The Korean Peninsula was first divided in 1945 into North Korea and South Korea.  Since then, the governments of each country has stated they would eventually like to reunify Korea into a single state.  In 2000, Each country signed the June 15th North-South Joint Declaration, promising to seek out a peaceful reunification.  Not much progress has been made lately, but it remains a possibility in the future.  Somaliland becoming independent from Somalia seems more likely to happen sooner than the reunification of Korea.  In 1960, the independent state of Somaliland voluntarily joined with Somalia to create the Republic of Somalia.  Somaliland technically declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 after a major government problem but continues to lack international recognition.  Somaliland has their own government and faithful citizens so it is only a matter of time before they begin to get international recognition as an independent state.

The new boundary for Korea would be based off existing boundaries, cultural boundaries, and physical boundaries.  The existing boundaries would be the boundary that is currently between North Korea and China.  The cultural boundary would be the division of the Korean nation, from the Chines nation.  The physical boundaries involved would be the Sea of Japan, the Yellow Sea, and the East China Sea.  The new boundaries dividing Somaliland from Somalia is a geometric boundary.  The geometric line is drawn dividing Somaliland from the Puntland region of Somalia.  The boundaries separating Somaliland and Somalia from other surrounding countries are also geometric boundaries.  The last type of boundary is the physical boundary of the Indian Ocean for Somalia, and the Gulf of Aden for Somaliland.

The new boundaries for Korea could be a potential problem for the people living inside them.  Over the time North and South Korea has been separated, the two countries along with their citizens have become less like each other.  This factor could lead to possible ethnocultural devolutionary movements.  Combining North and South Korea could result it economic benefits which would be a good centripetal force.  The proposed country is fairly elongated which could be a potential centrifugal force and lead to spatial devolutionary movements.  These new boundaries between Somaliland and Somalia would make the people of Somaliland very happy.  Many years after declaring independence, they finally receive international recognition, they would be very happy.  They new state of Somaliland would be compact which is a centripetal force and the most advantageous form of territorial morphology.  The new state of Somalia would be elongated and have potential risk of devolutionary movements from Puntland in the Northeast because of its spatial separation.

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Cultural Geography Photo Collage