Cultural Geography

Examples: Language, religion, and ethnic heritage

Language:

- arabic unites the arab world
- spanish unites the hispanic world
- Brazil is the only South American nation that does not speak spanish. It speaks portuguese.
- Canada is a bilingual nation. They have provinces instead of states. French and English are their official languages
- Switzerland has multiple languages but very little conflict between the groups
- English is now considered the world language and is used for most business transactions around the world.


Ethnic Heritage:

- In Yugoslavia, many ethnic groups were made into one country. (Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians)
- When strong leadership died out, the different groups died out. A Civil War broke out and they now have different countries now
- In Rowanda and Burundi in Africa, 2 ethnic groups are dominant, the Tutsis and the Hutus
- Hutus are dominant in one and they persecute the Tutsis, and the Tutsis are dominant in the other. 
- And the Tutsis persecute the Huhtus. It has lead to almost constant war between the groups
- The U.S. and Switzerland have peacefully merged ethnic groups in their counties
- Korea and Japan have one ethnic group
- On the island of Cyprus, the Greeks and Turks try to gain control