General Knowledge: U.S. Warns Suriname... China Faces Uprising In Guyana

Geography was one of those courses that we used to have as part of the grade school curriculum. Today, we seem to have gotten away from the study of geography. Television and the Internet have transported us to "places of interest".

Oh, sure, we have this world map in our minds when we read about the war in Iraq, or China and India becoming economic powerhouses, the French fighting in the Ivory Coast. But we don't really concern ourselves with the way geography impacts our perception of the world.

The U.S. is a big place... all 48 states... plus Alaska and Hawaii. Oops, a little geographic displacement of our political reality.

How often does South America come up in the news? Strangely, South America (population 1/3 billion) is more isolated from the North American world view than Australia (population 20 million). How many people do you know that have talked about or actually gone to Australia versus, say, Argentina? Or even Guyana? Do you know where Guyana is? South America has been called the "Hollow Continent" because of its vast, unpopulated interior. It is a continent of such extremely diverse cultural backgrounds and extreme geography that it is little more than "islands" of human development sharing a landmass.

Geography... the Andes Mountains and the great Amazon basin... combined with too much language and cultural diversity... and a really, really bad legacy the Spanish left... has prevented South America from political and economic growth. Geography... South America and Africa are geographic "twins" in the sense that both have a vast interior barrier to human migration or commerce (and may have been parts of one continent). But, whereas Africa's interior barrier... the Sahara... separates the northern edge from the vast central and southern portion, South America is, indeed, like a hollow ball of human settlement... development and growth must come along the edges.

If the Appalachian Mountains had been more like the Rockies, the U.S. might not have become the U.S. But they aren't and we are.

Interestingly, the geography of South America, while keeping it an economic and political backwater, provides a certain "protection" for its inhabitants. Despite the 1/3 billion people in South America...the rest of the world is mostly not interested in that continent... except for some exports... oil, cocaine, food, lumber. There's not much in the way of warfare... and what there is cannot be considered too significant. There is plenty of food and room to grow without a lot of interference. It is the same situation that allowed unique plants and animals to thrive for millions of years while the rest of the world underwent massive ecological and evolutionary changes.

Perhaps South America, because of its geographic and political isolation, may someday become the last bastion for mankind... but for now it is an interesting curiosity for the rest of the world.

And, no, the headline is not true.

Want to get some interesting facts about the world? Try this link.