国际贸易地理英文8

tied to Western Europe in many ways but have jealously guarded their independence. Although Denmark joined the EC in 1973, it has remained a critic of too much involvement, while the other three countries remained outside until the 1990s, when Finland and Sweden joined only after considerable debate and close referendum votes.

The economies of the countries of Northern Europe relied on primary products until the development of manufacturing and service industries in the 20^th century.

Denmark

remains a major agricultural country; Sweden has agriculture in the south, while the north has major timber and iron-mining industries; Finland is another major wood-producing country; and Norway has fishing and shipping industries. The discovery of major oil and gas reserves beneath the North Sea brought new wealth to Norway from the 1970s. All countries modernized and industrialized in the 20^th century, partly based on their natural resources and partly on the production of high-value metal and textile goods, vehicles (Sweden) and electronics (Denmark).

It grew as a port controlling the entrance to the Baltic Sea, acting as an entrepot for the transshipment of goods. It is now a major service and manufacturing center with government offices and financial services.

A diversity of manufacturing enterprises in central Sweden in the zone between Stockholm and Goteborg includes stainless steel products, ships, automobiles, electronics, furniture, and glassware. Sweden has a long history of manufacturing and has managed to develop and maintain a strong social support system.

- Helsinki, capital and center of metal, machinery, and shipbuilding industries;

Oulu, (奥卢)has become the center of high-tech manufacturing, and based around the Nokia mobile telephone factory.

In this section only the two countries of Austria and Switzerland will be considered. Both of them are dominated by the Alps, are landlocked. Their position in the center of Europe and the energy and skills of their people have combined to give them important strategic and economic significance.

Switzerland

, despite the prevalence of high mountains within its borders, is currently the world’s wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita. Switzerland is marked by a dominant German-speaking group in the north and east, a smaller French-speaking group in the west, and some Italian-speaking areas in the south.

With a continuous history of neutrality as well as its aloofness and, hence, little interruption in time of war, the Swiss developed strong manufacturing industries, significant financial institutions, and a major tourist industry that is among the world’s leaders.

Some of the Swiss manufactures, such as cheese and chocolate, are based on the dairy farming that is maintained with government grants. Switzerland has a railroad network that is famous for its timekeeping and for the feats of engineering that permitted the construction of major routes through the mountains.

The Swiss watchmaking industry was one of the early industrial developments that secured a worldwide market. Competition from Japanese digital watches from the 1960s led to the Swiss developing the cheaper “swatches” as well as higher value watches. Such innovations kept them in the forefront of the industry – one of the few cases where manufacturers in Western Europe coped with such competition.

Other manufacturing products from Switzerland include pharmaceuticals, precision machinery, and instruments.

Zurich (the largest city) and Basel are the main industrial cities and Zurich is also a major banking and finance center. Bern (伯尔尼,capital), the Capital, is the center of a number of small manufacturing towns. Geneva is the home of a number of United Nations agencies and other international organizations that selected Switzerland as a neutral country with high standards of education and international links.

Austria

is a dominantly German-speaking country that also contains smaller groups of peoples from its former Empire territories in southeastern Europe (Seen the movie serials Sici?). Austria was much involved in the two world wars, losing its former empire after the first and linking with Germany in the second (Seen the movie The Sound of Music?).

The Austrian economy also has an important tourist sector, based in the mountains and also in the towns such as Salzburg and Vienna that are associated with classical music (Blue Danube). Vienna, with a population of over 2 million, is one of Europe’s major cities that was built as the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (奥匈帝国) in the 19^th century. Now the capital of a much smaller country, it is a center of government functions, has a growing Danube trade assisted by the new canal link through Germany between the Rhine and Danube Rivers, and has modern manufacturing industries.

Although Italy, one of the six original members of the EC, has an overall GNP per head that is higher than that of the U.K., the country has two parts – the richer north that is an extension of industrialized core Western Europe, and the poorer south that is akin to the rest of Mediterranean Europe.

Spain

’s GNP is almost 2/3, and Greece’s and Portugal’s are less than one half (1/2), of Italy’s. Portugal, Spain, and Greece are now also EU members and their economies are improving with massive assistance from the European Union and access to EU markets. As a group these countries have the poorest human environments in Western Europe.

Each of the Mediterranean countries has its own distinctive language and culture. Although subject to long histories of links with each other, the peninsular nature of their land areas encouraged distinctiveness.

The country’s economic growth resulted mainly from the revival of its industries based in the north after World War II.

The government-supported Fiat automobile factory is still the main employer in Turin (都灵). Within Europe, Fiat of Italy has been particularly active in manufacturing its vehicles in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It was responsible for the Soviet Union’s largest truck plant at Minsk and its largest car plant, beside the Volga River.

Genoa (热那亚) on the Mediterranean coast is a major port and has steel and shipbuilding industries. Milan (米兰) is the largest city in northern Italy and has become a major center of financial and other service industries as well as producing a diverse group of manufactured goods including tractors, domestic electronic goods, china, shoes, and pharmaceuticals. Milan and its surrounding towns produce nearly 1/3 of Italian GDP and form one of the major growth areas of Western Europe.

Southern Italy still provides a contrast with the north. To overcome the north-south contrasts, Italy instigated a regional policy that poured funds into the industrialization of the southern part of the country. Despite all the investment from Italian and European regional policies, the gap between the regions has widened. Better roads eased transportation and new industries provided employment in some parts of southern Italy, but could not pull the area forward as fast as the growth in the north. Not only do the southern Italians compare their lot unfavorably to that of the northerners, but the latter (northerners) regret the taxation that provides funds for building infrastructure in southern Italy. Stories of government corruption and the Mafia organization of crime in the south fan the flames of this issue. Italy continues to suffer from poor and changing government, but this has not prevented rapid and effective economic growth in the north.

Rome – capital; famous for ancient relics, e.g. the Roman theater and amphitheatre;

Lisbon – the main center of population, government; also capital and major port.

Western Europe had a major role in the early development and expansion of today’s world economy, including the colonization of much of the rest of the world and the generation of the Industrial Revolution and many subsequent technological innovations. After two devastating world wars in the first half of the 20^th century, Western Europe faced ruin, but recovered and, with U.S. help, rehabilitated its economy to the extent that it now competes with the U.S. and Japan in leading the world economy.

Although Western Europe lags behind the U.S. and Japan in some aspects of economic development at the forefront of new technology, but is likely to continue to increase its proportion of world GDP. The EU attracts many applicants, especially countries in Eastern Europe for membership.

The breaking up of the governments in the communist Soviet bloc of countries between 1989 and 1991 was one of the major turning points in world history. This bloc was also called the “second world” and extended from Eastern Europe to easternmost Asia.

The former Soviet Union took over the Russian Empire that had expanded in the 19^th century. After WWII the Soviet Union additionally incorporated countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that it had liberated from German occupation into military and economic pacts. With central control based in the Moscow region of Russia, the political, economic, and military resources of the bloc were tightly coordinated.

The huge bloc, however, contained many distinctive ethnic groups and the citizens of former countries who took advantage of a relaxation of this central control under the perestroika (economic reconstruction) and glasnost (information openness) policies during the late 1980s to make nationalist demands. These policies resulted in economic breakdown and political breakup. The republics of the former Soviet Union and the other countries in the Soviet bloc established themselves as independent countries. By 1991 all the former communist countries, most of which had been closely interlinked with the Soviet Union in the COMECON trade agreement, abandoned their previous basis of communist ideology and state capitalism.

By the mid-1990s many of the countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans were turning away from Russia toward Western Europe. Some of the new countries that had been part of the Soviet Union also began to distance themselves from Russia, although they found this difficult for geographic, economic, and political reasons. For example, the landlocked countries of Central Asia had no previous experience of independence to build on, and their transportation links to the rest of the world lay through Russia. They were determined to remain independent, however, and their ethnic distinctiveness, especially their Muslim religion, caused them to face up to the Russian inhabitants who ran their republics in Soviet days.

So far the nightmares threatened by many commentators in the wake of the Bosnian conflict have not occurred more widely in this former Russian realm. The Bosnian war did not expand to engulf the whole region. Although there have been many deaths and great disruption from civil wars in the small country of Tajikistan and the Russian republic of Chechnya, etc., there has been no wave of popular unrest and no mass migration from east to west. Attempts continue to develop democratic governments. There are signs in the centers of cities such as Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest that Western-style prosperity is coming to parts of Eastern Europe.

The 1990s are a difficult and uncertain period of transition from the former state capitalism of the Soviet bloc toward the free market capitalism of the world economic system. Such transition involves fundamental changes in attitudes and institutions that will lead to major changes in the human geography of the region. Their linked recent histories and the current state of transition are the major features that link the countries in this major world region. The changes involved are much greater than anyone who speculated on the likelihood of them taking place before 1989 would have guessed. It is not known how long they will take, or if the peoples or potential ruling factions of each country will have patience to see them through. There is no historic precedent for such a political and economic turnaround, and the understanding gained of economic development in other parts of the world is largely irrelevant in suggesting what might happen.

The transition has many facets. There is the political breakup of countries and the loosening of economic ties among groups of countries that were held together by their communist parties, central planning, and Soviet military power. There is the shift from a communist, state-controlled economy to capitalism, together with an unraveling of the economic links and dependencies that provided an inheritance of decades of misdevelopment in the economies of many countries. There are economic transitions in agriculture, manufacturing, transport infrastructure, and energy use as countries try to catch up with competing Western technologies and adapt to new trading relationships. There is the will for increasing links westward to the EU and NATO and the resistance to such links by Russia. (For further details, see attached materials P328-P333).

The natural environments of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union are marked by the huge extent of the land area. The continental interior climates, often with long and harsh winters, the vast plains, and the variety of natural vegetation and soils provide a distinctive stage on the development of human geographies occurred.

The countries of this region all lie north of 40°N and most of their area is north of 50°N. Their midlatitude continental interior climates are more like those of central and eastern Canada than those of the US. The warmest climates are in the Balkans, around the Black and Caspian Sea, and in the Central Asian countries.

The largest proportion of these lands is more than 200 km from the ocean and many parts are over 2,000 km from the ocean. With greater distance inland, the extremes of summer and winter temperatures increase. Parts of southern Central Asia are arid because of the high evaporation rates in warmer latitudes and distance from rain-bearing air masses. Much of northernmost Russia lies inside the Arctic Circle. The coldest place in the country is Yakutsk in eastern Siberia, where temperatures fall below -50°C for three months in the year.

The greater part of the region is plain and low plateau, but the southern boundary is marked for much of its length by mountain systems thrown up by the convergence of tectonic plates carrying the continent of Eurasia on the north and the land masses of Africa, Arabia, and India to the south (Figure 7.11).

The Balkans are marked by outlying ridges of the Alps in the former Yugoslavia, by the Carpathian Mountains (喀尔巴阡山脉 – 阿尔卑斯山脉主干东伸部分) in Slovakia and Romania. Eastward beyond Turkey the Caucasus Mountains(高加索山脉)continue the line of mountain ranges that then extends through the Elburz mountains of northern Iran to the Tian shan, and the Pamir Mountains (帕米尔) along the southern borders of the Central Asian countries. These mountain ranges rise to over 7,400 m and include many peaks over 3,000 m. They are snow-capped and provide considerable meltwater for streams flowing through the dry areas of southern Russia in spring. In the far east the East Siberian Uplands and the volcanic peaks on the Kamchatka Peninsula (堪察加半岛) parallel the Pacific coast in areas that have few people.

The earth movements not only raised high mountain ranges but also produced deep basins such as those filled by the Black Sea, Caspian Sea (里海), and lake Baikal (贝加儿湖).

Plains and low plateaus dominate the landscapes of this region. The Northern European Plain widens eastward through Poland into Belarus, Ukraine, and European Russia until it ends against the Ural Mountains that mark the line between Europe and Asia. Plains around the northern shores of the Black sea and along the rivers leading to the Caspian and Aral (咸海)Seas extend into the Western Siberian Plains. Farther east the relief again becomes more hilly in the Central Siberian Plateau.

Along these mainly low-lying landscapes flow some of the world’s longest rivers. The Vistula (维斯瓦河或维斯拉河，波兰最大河流) flows across Poland into the Baltic Sea and the Danube across the Balkans into the Black Sea. The Don River (顿河) system flows into the Black Sea and the Volga River (伏儿加河)into the Caspian. The longest rivers of all, however, are those that rise in the southern mountains of Central Asia and flow northward across Siberia – the Ob (鄂毕河), Yenisey (叶尼塞河), and Lena (勒拿河).

(In the last 20 years efforts were made to coordinate the management of Danube waters for transportation and hydroelectricity. This proved difficult because the river flows through more countries than any other major world river. The recent widening of the Rhine-Danube canal in southern Germany was carried out to stimulate further development of the Danube artery.)

The Russian Federation is the world’s largest country, having nearly twice the area of Canada, the US, or China.

Over a period of around 500 years the Russian Empire expanded to dominate the territory that became the Soviet Union in 1922. Following WWII the Soviet Union also played a major role in managing the economies of the Eastern European and most of the Balkan countries, mainly for the benefit of the European Russian people. Throughout this long period of time, Russia was governed by feudal, centralizing monarchs, or by state capitalism. During the 19^th and 20^th centuries there were only 4 short periods when wider democratic powers and a freer economy were available to the Russian people: when Alexander II freed the serfs in the early 1860s, when land reforms occurred under Peter Stolypin from 1906 to 1911, when Lenin introduced economic liberalization in the early 1920s, and since 1991. The policies of centralization that characterized Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union accompanied restricted contacts with the outside world and left behind a lack of experience in the world economic system and of institutions related to it. Such lacks are thought to account for Russia’s wish to retain its “empire” identity, but may also be major hindrances to Russian economic growth in the near future.

Following the disruption of its political and economic empire in 1991, Russia struggled to maintain its position as a leading world power. It armies returned home from the newly independent countries around it and the Russian Federation began to open its economy to the world economic system. By 1995 it was clear that democratic processes were developing. The economy was showing signs of emerging from the decline and of beginning to grow again. Public institutions and welfare support systems, however, remained poorly equipped to deal with the political and economic changes. As a response to perceived threats to its integrity from outside many Russians – as reflected in new political parties – wish to resist a Western takeover and to reassert their leadership role in a reestablished “empire” without the trappings of communism.

The Russian core region lies between its western border with the Baltic countries, Belarus, and Ukraine and the Urals to the east. The Moscow region is home to 50 million people and is the focus of Soviet central planning and transportation routes linking the entire country. St. Petersburg, a major Baltic port north of Moscow (the largest port of the country), is a smaller manufacturing center but still produces around 10% of the total Russian output.

East of Moscow the Urals contain many metal ores and are only a minor barrier to communications. North of St. Petersburg there is little farming, but ice-free Murmansk (摩尔曼斯克，不冻港) has been an important naval port and center of mining towns, while Arkhangel’sk (阿尔汗格尔斯克) is a timber-exporting port.

East of the Urals, Siberia forms a huge area that can be divided generally into the more developed southern margins along the line of the Trans-Siberian Railway route and the still inaccessible northern lands. Siberia is an essential part of Russia, making up 3/4 of its land and providing a large proportion of its raw materials. In 1990 Siberia produced 73% of Russia’s oil, 90% of its natural gas, 61% of its coal, all of its diamonds, and 30% of its timber and electricity. It also has a growing fishing industry on the Pacific coast.

The far east, flanking the southern Pacific coast of Russia, has ports such as Vladivostok (海参崴，其远东最大经济中心) and Nakhodk (纳霍德卡港).

Northern Siberia is a resource frontier region in which deposits of gold, diamonds, metallic ores, oil, and natural gas are exploited. In the 1990s part of the economic transition involved foreign corporations joining Russian groups to exploit its vast mineral wealth as a means of balancing the costs of importing new industrial machinery, consumer goods, and food. The oil and gas reserves are of particular interest to the rest of the world. In early 1995 the Russian government raised oil export quotas which had formerly put a ceiling on exports and so helped to keep internal prices low.

Russia

’s mineral wealth extends to a wide variety of metal ores. At present multinational mining corporations are particularly interested in developing gold mining, as in the world’s largest gold deposit at Sukhoi Rog in Siberia. Russia also produces 1/4 of the world’s diamonds, but is suspicious of the De Beers worldwide marketing control of this industry and may lead opposition to it.

A sign of Russia’s progress in the transition phase of its economic turnabout was that by early 1994 Western Europe had become its main trading partner, linked by 37% of its total trade compared to 24% with other CIS states (Commonwealth of Independent States独立国家联合体) and 13% with former COMCON partners in Eastern Europe (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, known as COMECON 经济互助委员会). This change is largely account for by energy exports to countries such as Germany that pay high prices. Germany now buys 30% of its gas and 12% of its crude oil from Russia and it could be said that Russia is fuelling the growth of German industry. The potential for growth in this trade with Western Europe is great and may eventually equal EU trade with the US, at present several times greater than that with Russia.

Eastern Europe comprises countries that are farthest along the transition path from state to market capitalism. This subregion is most open to contacts with Germany and Scandinavia and its countries eagerly took the 1991 opportunity of independence from Soviet military occupation and from involvement in COMECON. (“Eastern Europe” could include Russia and may give the impression of eastward links at a time when the countries in the subregion are looking westward, but is used here for the part of Europe between Germany and the CIS that has witnessed many political changes and is difficult to characterize by any name.)

Eastern Europe consists of the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and the 3 Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – together with Kaliningrad, which is still part of the Russian Federation.

The traditional economies of the Eastern European countries were based on agricultural production, but the Soviet occupation of the countries with its control of their economies after the 1940s led to state investment in the industrialization of areas linked to coalfields. The exchanges of food, raw materials, and finished or partly finished manufactures with the Soviet Union (易货贸易) up to 1991 formed a major part of their economic activities, but after 1991 such exchanges were greatly reduced and countries outside Russia now have to look to other markets.

Poland

’s most productive farming area is south of Warsaw. At the end of WWII the new borders of Poland included the former German industrial area of Silesia (西里西亚，中欧一地区，包括波兰西南部，捷克和斯洛伐克北部以及德国东南部) based on a coalfield with other local minerals. This area formed the basis of Polish industrial expansion.

The Czech Republic’s economy is centered on the Prague area, which has remained a focus of wealth and technology, closely linked to its neighbor, Germany. A number of small industrial towns in the Bohemian region (波希米亚) around Prague produce precision goods. In the mid-1990s the Czech Republic is undergoing privatization. A major incident in the current process of change was the takeover of the Skoda car manufactured by Volkswagen of Germany, the latter seeking low-cost labor for its cheaper models.

Slovakia

was always the poorer province of Czechoslovakia and since declaring independence its government has taken a slow approach to economic reform.

The economies of the Baltic countries are limited by their size and natural resources. They have to seek new overseas markets after losing access to Russian raw materials and the markets for which many of their production facilities were designed.

The Russian enclave around Kaliningrad remains a military fortress largely populated by Russians, but is making attempts to become an entrepot trade center and free trade zone, due to its position as the only warm-water port on the Baltic area.

The Balkan countries occupy a broad Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe between the Adriatic and the Black Seas. Before WWI this region was a major zone of international tension, being governed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the north, the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the South, and having some incursions from Russia to the east. In 1919 new countries were carved from the remains of these empires, but were submerged in the German expansion of its territory from 1939. After WWII the countries had a short independence existence before become part of the Soviet bloc. Whatever the nature of dominant political forces, however, this area has for long been subject to political unrest.

It is a subregion in which long-established ethnic differences play a large part in continuing civil strife and international incidents. Only partly subdued during the communist era from 1945 to 1990, many of the local tensions surfaced again in the 1990s.

The Balkan countries include Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and the group of countries that once comprised Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那, Croatia克罗地亚, Macedonia马其顿, Serbia-Montenegro南斯拉夫联盟, and Slovenia斯洛文尼亚).

*Country*	*Capital*
Albania	Tirane地亚那
Bulgaria	Sofia索非亚
Hungary	Budapest布达佩斯
Romania	Bucharest布加勒斯特
Bosnia-Herzegovina	Sarajevo萨拉热窝
Serbia-Montenegro	Belgrade贝尔格莱德
Croatia	Zagreb萨格勒布
Macedonia	Skopje斯科普里
Slovenia	Ljubliana布尔雅那

Southwest CIS include 6 former republics that were in the Soviet Union until 1991 but are now independent countries and share the process of transition toward establishing a viable political and economic existence while remaining close to the dominant influence of Russia.

Georgia

did not join the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) at first but is an integral part of this subregion. Three countries – Belarus(白俄罗斯), Ukraine(乌克兰), Moldova(摩尔多瓦) – occupy the plains of the western part of the former Soviet Union that stretch from the Baltic countries to the Black Sea. Georgia(格鲁吉亚), Armenia(亚美尼亚), and Azerbaijan(阿塞拜疆) occupy the mountainous Transcaucasian region south of Russia and between the Black and Caspian Sea – a region with the most complex ethnic mix of languages, religions, and historic changes of control in the world.

The former Central Asia republics of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union now form 5 independent countries – Kazakstan(哈萨克斯坦), Kyrgyzstan(吉尔吉斯斯坦), Tajikistan(塔吉克斯坦), Turkmenistan(土库曼斯坦), and Uzbekistan(乌兹别克斯坦).

These countries are similar in their landlocked inland situations, their arid or semiarid climates, and the Muslim faith of many of their peoples. Although apparently isolated from world trade and with little political or economic power in world affairs, this group of countries occupies a strategic position with overland access to Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan.

Anglo America, composed of Canada and the United States of America, is not only a world core in what was once called the “New World”, but took over the leadership from the established world core region of Western Europe in the 20^th century.

The U.S. began to make its impression on the world economy in the mid-19^th century, just 150 years ago. By the end of that century it became the world’s most important manufacturing country, outpacing Britain and Germany. In 1950 the U.S. produced half of the world’s goods, and although the proportion fell as Western Europe and Japan recovered from wartime destruction on their lands, the U.S. retained its leadership. By 1993 Anglo America’s GDP was 29% of the world total. Of the other core regions, the Industrial Heartland of Western Europe produced 19% of the world total GDP in 1993 and Japan produced 18%.

The huge output of Anglo’s industries comes from under 5% of the world’s population. This makes the majority of the people who live in the region extremely affluent. The high economic output also had much to do with making the U.S. a major world superpower in politics. Since the end of the Cold War in 1990 it is the only one.

Anglo America was historically settled largely by Europeans who displaced native groups after 1500 and especially after 1800. The U.S. became independent in 1783, while Canada gained the virtual freedom of dominion status in 1867.

The term “Anglo America” is used because English is the main language of both countries, setting them apart from Latin America where Spanish and Portuguese (Brazil) are dominant languages. Minority languages in Anglo America are, however, significant. In the French-speaking province of Quebec, where most Francophones live, there is sufficient political support to consider making it an independent country.

“Anglo America” is preferred to “North America” since, although Mexico and sometimes the countries of Central America and the Caribbean islands are regarded as being part of North America, they have greater cultural affinities with the other countries of Latin America that were colonized by Spain in the 16^th century.

The combination of natural wealth, technological and management leadership, and a large internal market brought the U.S. world economic leadership. In the early 20^th century it dominated the development and production of new products based upon automobiles, trucks, airplanes, and consumer goods. Its corporations expanded abroad, especially after WWII. After 1950 it established a huge lead in the development and use of computers. Although Western Europe and especially Japan now challenge this economic and technological superiority, there is no other single country that is close to rivaling the total GDP of the U.S. or the size of its internal market for products.

Canada

lagged behind its neighbor through the early 20^th century, partly because of restrictions resulting from its colonial ties to Britain, and partly because of the smaller size of its market for goods. It gradually became more closely enmeshed with the U.S.’ economy and dependent on it in many ways.

In 1988 the U.S. and Canada established the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which led to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 by adding Mexico to the arrangement. The agreement between the U.S. and Canada was successful and continues to thrive under NAFTA despite a sequence of disputes over individual items. Trade between the two countries rose by 40% from 1988 to 1993 and more rapidly than each country’s trade with the rest of the world. The Mexican link has only begun to function and its impact was slowed by the ups and downs of Mexican finances after late 1994.

Other countries in Latin America have applied to join NAFTA. Chile is the most likely to be admitted first, since the trading reputation of its rival Colombia is tarnished by its drugs traffic. Such applications suggested an expansion into an American Free Trade Association (AFTA). This was agreed in December 1994 by all Anglo and Latin American countries except Cuba.

Canada

and the U.S. have the widest range of natural environments in any two countries of the world, from high mountains to plains and from subtropic arid and humid areas to the arctic cold. The distinctive framework of relief that affects other aspects of the natural environments is formed by the north-south (南北走向) mountain systems and the intervening wide central lowland. This lowland is drained southward by the Mississippi River and its tributaries and northward to Hudson Bay.

While the natural environments of most of the U.S. are positive for human settlement, Canada’s natural environments have a restrictive influence on much of its human geography because so much of the country lies near or beyond the margins of productive or habitable land. Continuous settlement is concentrated in a narrow zone just north of the U.S.’ border.

The west coasts are mountainous and are affected by earthquake and volcanic activity; the east coasts are low-lying or hilly with only rare internal earth activity.

In the west, the Rocky Mountain ranges run from Alaska and northwestern Canada to southern Colorado. To their west in the U.S. are extensive high plateaus from the Colorado Plateau in the south to the lava layers of the Columbia Plateau just south of the Canadian border.

The Mississippi lowlands east of the Rockies give the impression of being flat for over a thousand kilometers but rise gradually eastward and westward from the river to the mountains.

East of Mississippi lowlands the Appalachian Mountains form a hilly tract that extends from northern Georgia into the Adirondacks of New York, the Green and White Mountains of New England, and the Atlantic Provinces of Canada.

The physical and human geographies of Anglo America are greatly affected by the surface hydrology. In particular the presence of major rivers and the Great Lakes have provided sources of water together with water and land transportation routes.

The Mississippi River provided the basis of early interior transportation and continues that role. Its tributary, the Ohio River, was at the heart of manufacturing developments in the U.S. during the late 19^th century. The Colorado River provides irrigation water for the arid southwest. The Columbia River is used to generate hydroelectricity in the northwestern United States. The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Seaway (大湖区 – 圣劳伦斯海道) brought easier trade and associated industries to the heart of Canada and the U.S.


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