This narrative is an edited version of an essay by Alexander B. Murphy, Department of Geography, University of Oregon. For the complete article, see the Journal of Geography, May-August 2000, Vol. 99, No. 3/4.

Political boundaries exist at a variety of scales, and these boundaries influence how goods and services are distributed, who gets represented and who does not, and how issues are confronted.

Because the boundaries that receive the most attention are boundaries between independent countries, one might begin this discussion by considering the historical and contemporary role of these boundaries and how they reflect the distribution of other phenomena. Students can be introduced to the boundaries identified in the classical political geography literature (antecedent, geometrical, superimposed, etc.) and they can be encouraged to consider the relationship of those political boundaries to social, economic, cultural, and environmental boundaries. For example, one can see some relationships between maps of precipitation patterns and maps of population density, or between maps of population density and maps of particular types of economic activities. But the world political map looks like no other thematic map.

Encourage students to think about the ways in which political boundaries structure human affairs and understandings. Political boundaries of significance exist both "above" and "below" the state. For "above" the state, boundaries such as the former Iron Curtain, the current boundary between NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and non-NATO states, or the boundaries that have been drawn through the world's oceans to demarcate zones of control. For "below" the state consider municipalities, voting districts, special districts, and areas zoned for particular land uses. Focusing attention on smaller-scale political-territorial units allows students to see how everything from the delivery of services to the reach of certain laws is affected by the particular configuration of political territories. Perhaps the most evocative example of political territory at the local scale is that of the voting district, for it is here that the significance of political boundaries for questions of representation can be most clearly demonstrated. Examples of gerrymandering should be used to highlight the importance of thinking about territory not simply in locational terms, but as a dynamic force in human affairs.