Historical regions (or historical areas) are
geographical regions which at some point in time had a
cultural,
ethnic,
linguistic or
political basis, regardless of latterday borders. They are used as delimitations for studying and analysing social development of
period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
-specific cultures without any reference to contemporary political, economic or social organisations.
The fundamental principle underlying this view is that older political and mental structures exist which exercise greater influence on the spatial-social identity of individuals than is understood by the contemporary world, bound to and often blinded by its own worldview - e.g. the focus on the nation-state.
Definitions of regions vary,
[xiii, Tägil] and regions can include
macroregion A macroregion is a geopolitical subdivision that encompasses several traditionally or politically defined regions or countries. The meaning may vary, with the common denominator being cultural, economical, historical or social similarity within a ma ...
s such as Europe, territories of traditional
states or smaller
microregional areas. A geographic proximity is the often required precondition for emergence of a
regional identity.
In Europe, the regional identities are often derived from the
Migration Period but for the contemporary perspective are often related to the
1918–1920 time of territorial transformation, and another in the
post-Cold War period.
Some regions are entirely invented, such as the
Middle East in 1902 by a
military strategist
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
,
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Alfred Thayer Mahan (; September 27, 1840 – December 1, 1914) was a United States naval officer and historian, whom John Keegan called "the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century." His book '' The Influence of Sea Powe ...
, to refer to the area of the Persian Gulf.
[p. 65, Lewis, Wigen]
Lists
*
Anatolia
*
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
*
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the ar ...
* Denmark (
Lands /
Districts
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...
)
* Finland (
Historical
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
/
Former
A former is an object, such as a template, gauge or cutting die, which is used to form something such as a boat's hull. Typically, a former gives shape to a structure that may have complex curvature.
A former may become an integral part of the ...
)
* Greece (
Ancient
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
/
Traditional /
Geographic)
*
Latvia
*
Portugal
*
Serbia
* Sweden (
Lands /
Provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...
)
*
United States
References
Works cited
* Sven Tägil, (ed.), ''Regions in Central Europe: The Legacy of History'', C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999
* Marko Lehti, David James Smith, ''Post-Cold War Identity Politics: Northern and Baltic Experiences'', Routledge, 2003
* Compiled by V. M. Kotlyakov, A. I. Komarova, ''Elsevier's dictionary of geography: in English, Russian, French, Spanish, German'', Elsevier, 2006
* Martin W. Lewis, Kären Wigen, ''The Myth of Continents: A Critique of
Metageography'', University of California Press, 1997
Further reading
* Susan Smith-Peter, ''Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia'', Brill, 2017
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