Chapter 11

Section 1

1. Landforms formed by glaciation include rounded mountains in the northwestern mountain ranges. The Northern European Plain is an example of a landform that is changed by wind for loess that comes from glaciers fertilizes it. In the Mediterranean Sea, tectonic activity help form large islands like Sicily.

2. Rivers vital to Europe's economy include the Thames, which allows oceangoing ships to reach London's ports, the Rhine, which connects several industrial cities, and the Danube, which flows through Germany , Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea.

Creative Writing: The countries on the Rhine River, especially those that are down stream, will have political both political and economical issues with what the water is used with in the countries it passes. If the water reaches them and is polluted by dirty water mills, their drinking water and their fish would be contaminated.

Section 2

1. Western and southern parts of Europe that lie along large bodies of water recieve the warm maritime winds of the North Atlantic Current. Just like all the other areas of the world, latitude, landforms, and altitude also determine the climate of the regions in Europe.

2. Winds, like the North Atlantic Current, affect the climate of Europe by warming its coast and its water. The prevailing winds also bring warm, moist air to western Europe.

Creative Writing: Possible reasons for these temperatures to differ so greatly are very numerous. Ireland, being a small country on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, will get a great effect from coastal winds even if the area is as inland as possible. Meanwhile, Minnesota is very inland in America, which is quite large in comparison to Ireland. Thusly, it would not get as much effect from the winds. The altitudes of these locations could also by different, causing one to have a naturally high or low temperature.

Chapter 10, Section 2

1. The development in Latin American countries has caused people to destroy large areas of forests at a time.

2. Due to the massive growth in Latin America's urban population, poor people of some areas must move out into shantytowns, where they are susceptible to the effects of air pollution, widespread disease due to unsanitary communities, and natural disasters such as mud slides and floods.

Creative Writing: Countries in Latin America are dealing with several major problems currently, two of which are overpopulation and border disputes. Most major cities have shantytowns and slums surrounding them, filled with disease and pollution, which can affect the regions around them and the whole world. During border disputes, several billions of dollars are used to aid both sides of the arguement to keep them from going to war and these wars can use major resources that otherwise could have been used to better both sides of the war and the whole world.

Chapter 10, Section 1

1. The basis of the economies of most of the countries in Latin America is agriculture.

2. Latin America was put into an economically dependent status because they needed to finance industrial developments in the 1960s and the 1970s, and thus borrowed funds from foreign banks. Unfortunately for the Latin American countries, when an economic slowdown occurs, they need to decrease monthly payments, which raises the total amount of interest on their debts.

Creative Writing: A major advantage has been given to the country of Mexico because of the NAFTA, which is the amount of trade, especially in the service industry. With NAFTA, trade between the three countries grew by ten to fifteen percent annually, which benefited Mexico greatly. However, because the workers in Mexico are willing to work for such a minuscule amount of money, and in businesses that harm their environment, Mexico has not seen much economic or environmental improvement

Chapter 9, Section 3

1. The biggest problem that this area has with the urbanization of its population is the sharp clashing of the rich and poor districts of the cities. This causes megacities to have problems with housing, employment, maintaining infrastructure, crime, and traffic.

2. The two most determining factors of the healthcare of a region are the economy and standards of living.

Creative Writing: If I had a choice between living in a rural area in South America and living in a city, I would choose the city. In a city, the lifestyle would be much more industrialized, leaving with more job offers for my family as long as we do not live in an overpopulated region. In that region, healthcare is also more likely to be an improvement as their would most likely be a higher population and thus a higher demand for good healthcare, which I suppose could also mean a decline in service because people of medical profession could be busy with other people.

Chapter 9, Section 2

1. In Central America, the majority of the population practices Roman Catholicism.

2. The major ethnic groups that make up this region include those of the indigenous people, Europeans, mestizos, blacks, asians, and mixes between those.

Creative Writing: During his travel to Panama, Vasco de Balboa found that there was but a small peice of land that stood between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This later became important because in 1914 the United States had completed the Panama Canal. This path became a very important trade route to ships making trips that would otherwise make them go around either side of the Americas, which was both dangerous and expensive.

Chapter 9, Section 1

1. Latin America's Native Americans empires have left cities, terraces, courts, temples, and accurate calenders. The Mayans also left their temples and cities for Latin Americans to explore and investigate.

2. European rule has caused Mexico to political revolts, uprising, etc. for hundreds of years due to Mexico no longer being controlled by natives, then being controlled by wealthy landowners, and finally a president.

Creative Writing: Mexico has many sports that were originally created and practiced in several different nations that Mexico has come to adopt. Mexico's main sport, bullfighting, is derived from its native culture, not foreign nations like other sports. Soccer, another major sport, was created by the English and baseball, which traces of can be found from France all the way back to 1344 AD.

Chapter 8, Section 2

1. The climate regions represented in Latin America are tropical wet, tropical dry, humid subtropical, steppe, desert, mediterranean, marine west coast, and highland.

2. Areas in Latin America may get changes in climate in specific climate regions because of sudden incline, causing the area to get colder and drier. Also, along the windward side of the continent, new breezes may come in to warm and cool the area while on the leeward side, the area may get drier and hotter.

Creative Writing: On September 17th, my family and I went on I hiking trip up one of the shorter mountains on the Andes. At about noon we drove to an area right in the middle of the tierra fria, around nine thousand feet above sea level, where we could only see evergreen trees every three hundred meters or so, but dense shrub and small plants everywhere. For the next few hours, it was quite cold and dry. After about a mile, we had clearly passed the tree line and there was only grass to be seen, but the cold and dryness of the area could always be felt. By about six o'clock, we had crossed the puna and the snow line and it had gotten to cold for my family, or the vegetation to go further, so we turned back, keeping a quick pace down the mountain, and got back to the car around ten-thirty.

Chapter 8, Section 1

1. Geographers often divide Latin America into three sub-regions: Middle America, the Caribbean, and South America.

2. Latin America is an economically important region because they are among the leading producers of energy resources like oil and natural gas. They also have large amounts of gold and silver, the world's finest emeralds and several other precious and nonprecious resources.

Creative Writing: The people of Latin America have many uses for the water systems in their countries. For the larger rivers, the people can use the waterways as commercial routes. Rivers can also be used to generate hydroelectric power for that region. Human-made waterways, such as the Panama Canal can be used to cut time out of travels from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.