Basic Data on the Territory of the USSR and its Physical Characteristics

A gas-industry economist outlines a series of geographical and economic arguments in favor of transmitting natural gas from Tyumen' Oblast to the European part of the USSR via the Middle Urals rather than along the northern route through Komi ASSR, as now planned. In his view, the Middle Urals route would be more economical by providing more direct access to major consuming areas and avoiding the northern hostile environment with its inevitable increase in construction costs.     

The Landscape Sphere and the Geographical Environment

An advocate of a unified geography adopts a biosocial, or natural-social, approach to the definition of several concepts in geography, distinguishing the landscape sphere and the geographical environment. The landscape sphere of the earth consists of the sphere of the natural landscape (comprising both untouched and man-altered nature) and the sphere of human activity, or sociosphere, which includes the sphere of the cultural landscape (agrosphere plus technosphere) and mankind itself. The geographical environment includes the natural environment (man-altered nature plus parts of untouched nature), the material results of the labor of past generations and geographical manifestations of the social environment.     

Geographical Applications of Remote Sensing

A review of remote sensing applications in geographical research, based mainly on United States publications.     

The Role of Geographers in Work on a Land Cadaster and on an Agricultural Evaluation of Lands

Geographers have been in the forefront of the campaign to institute a full-fledged land cadastre and economic land-evaluation program in the Soviet Union. Although a State Register of Landholdings was adopted in 1955, it is concerned mainly with the distribution of lands among land-holdings and the composition of agricultural lands (crop land, hay meadows, pastures, etc.) within landholdings. A full fledged cadastral and evaluation program would seek to evaluate land in terms of quality and productivity. In view of the interdisciplinary character of the work, geographers are viewed as most suitable participants.     

Geographical Aspects of the Organization of Social Production and its Control (with Special Reference to Agriculture)

A systems approach to the study of the geographical aspects of production and the management of production is proposed. Areal (geographic) systems are viewed as a form of organization of production and an object of control. The areal system may range in scale from a microsystem (an individual large farm) to a global system. Geographical information plays an important role in the organization and control of areal systems. Geographic models, particularly maps, are a useful tool in the analysis and design of systems. The systems approach to areal complexes is not intended to replace the regional method, but supplements the regional approach by providing a better understanding of the region as a complex dynamic system. Further research in the geography of the control of production from the systems standpoint is recommended.     

Application of Quantitative Methods of Settlement Analysis to a Lower-Level (Intra—Oblast) Economic Regionalization

Two quantitative techniques—the mean center of population of the old centrography school, and the potential of population—are applied to settlement analysis in Eastern Siberia for purposes of lower economic regionalization. The migrations of the mean center of population of Yakut ASSR and Irkutsk Oblast are interpreted in terms of regional development trends from the 1920s to the 1960s. Analyses of the potential of population for different dates suggest the formation of areal production nodes that can be used in delimiting lower economic regions. The boundaries between such lower-order regions tend to pass through undeveloped and sparsely settled areas that show up as low values on maps of the potential of population.     

A Quantitative Approach to Designing a System of Economic Regions of the USSR

The authors state the rationale and describe the technique used to devise a system of seven economic macroregions of the USSR for long-term planning purposes. Since broad resource groups determine the specialization of regional complexes and their specialization in the geographical division of labor, the macroregions were constructed on the basis of homogeneity in key resources, such as manpower, fuels, land, water and transport geography. The new regional system preserves the basic division of the USSR into western and eastern economic zones, and reflects the lower labor and transport costs in the west, and the lower natural-resource costs in the east. The seven-region system, which is already being used in the 15-year plan 1975–1990, is expected to help determine optimal directions of regional development depending on whether regions have surpluses or are short of fuels, electric power, land, water or manpower. The new macroregions were designed by consolidating existing basic economic regions and union republics into larger entities, but the republics may be set apart as subzones for more detailed planning purposes.     

Nonmetric dental characteristics of the early modern population of Okinawa Island in Nansei Islands,Japan

Dental morphological characteristics of the early modern population (c. 17–19th century AD) of Okinawa Island, Nansei Islands, were investigated to clarify their genealogical characteristics. We observed and classified 25 nonmetric traits of tooth crowns and roots from human remains (106 individuals) excavated from tombs of the early modern period in Okuma, Ginowan City, Okinawa. The incidences of these traits were compared with the incidences in the populations of the other Nansei Islands, of Japan, and of Asia overall. Univariate analysis of each trait and multivariate biological distance analysis based on the frequencies of the traits showed that the Okinawa population in the early modern period more closely resembled the migrant Yayoi populations than it did the native Jomon populations. It is difficult to support the “Ainu‐Ryukyu common origin theory” with regard to the early modern population in Okinawa without some modification of the theory, as well as the modern populations in Tanegashima and Okinawa Island. The geographical cline in the modern period from the northern Kyushu to the Okinawa Island via Tanegashima was confirmed in this analysis. Considering the major temporal changes in northern Kyushu and Tanegashima in addition to the geographical cline, the southward gene flow of the migrant Yayoi elements from northern Kyushu to the central Nansei Islands via the northeast end of the Nansei Islands is suggested. In addition, this study detected some temporal changes from the early modern to the modern period in Okinawa Island. Although the minor temporal change may be attributed to some genetic drift, gene flow from the Japanese main islands or China might be considered one of the causes of the change. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Research in the spatial sciences: how are Canadian geographers contributing?

Geographic data collection, manipulation, analysis and visualization options have experienced substantial improvements during the past several decades, largely spurred by advancements in computing capabilities. While geographers are often credited with identifying and expanding many of the emerging application areas and innovations for the analysis of spatially (and sometimes temporally) referenced data, we are specifically interested in the role of Canadian geographers in the rapidly evolving domain of spatial science. We pose the following provocative question with the intent of not only summarizing the Canadian literature, but also to stimulate an informed discussion: ‘are Canadian geographers developers or users of spatial analytical methods?’ We review the refereed literature from 1980 to 2008 to describe the nature of contributions by Canadian geographers, beginning at about the time of widely accessible computing (1980s). Our summary broadly classifies subdisciplinary contribution areas as being best described as GIS, remote sensing, or spatial statistics, while each contribution area may take the type of algorithm development, advancement and synthesis of theory, or the application of existing methods. We paint a picture of the current contribution landscape and reflect on significant achievements while commenting on some potential weakness that with increased resources and focus might become future realms of advancement.