Concept of Region in Geography

 In geography, regions are the areas that are broadly divided by its physical characteristics
(physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction
of humanity and the environment (environmental geography).

 Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and
sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such
as national borders are defined in law.

 In the 20th century regions were classified into different categories ( different functional
regions or planning regions) with the help of different statistical methods showing functional
homogeneity in multiple attributes
 At present, the Region and regionalization get wide spectrum through the planning
process in any country or a state or small unit of a natural, functional, or vernacular region of
the word; to achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Characteristics of Region

 A region is an area of a specific location.

 Distinctiveness: Every region is a distinct geographical area;
 Uniqueness
 Homogeneity: Homogeneity in one ore more geographical element within the boundary;
 Heterogeneity: Heterogeneity in those elements towards its regional boundaries;
 Dynamic/ Changing character: A region has dynamic character because its features where
change during times; whether it is physical or human elements, single or multiple feature
elements or functional or planning regions; geographical features where dynamics;
 Hierarchy: Every region has some kind of hierarchical arrangement.
 Dynamic Scale: A region can be different in scale according to its shape and size.
 Problematic: Every region have similar problems within its boundary;
 Purposive: A region is delineated for specific proposes.
 Resourceful: A region should be resourceful or have some specific resources so that they
were utilized in the planning process.

Structure of Region

 Node
 Zone
 Area

Node – Here polarization or centralization of Phenomenon is found. Nodes develop in functional

regions but unidentified in formal regions.

Zone – it is segment of space/part of an area where intensity and magnitude of phenomenon is

maximum.

Area– It include Node + Zone + Transitional Boundaries.

Thus Region is Node + Zone + Transitional Boundaries.

The three main types of regions are formal, functional, and
perceptional/vernacular regions.

Formal (Uniform) region

 A formal region is a geographical region that is homogeneous and uniform within a specified
criterion. This specified criterion could be physical, social, or political. Example – Himalayan
Region, Sub-Tropical Region, etc. Such regions may be referred to as natural regions as they
exist naturally on the geographical space.
 It is an area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics. This
common characteristic could be a cultural value such as language, an economic activity such
as the production of a certain crop, or an environmental property such as climate and weather
patterns. Whatever the common characteristic is, it is present throughout the selected region.
 In certain formal regions, the characteristic may be predominant rather than universal, such
as the wheat belt in North America, it is an area in which the predominant crop is wheat, but
other crops are grown here as well.
 It’s is further divided in ‘Single feature Region ‘(ex. Physiographic regions of India),“Multiple
Feature region’ (ex. Resource Region or Planning region), and ‘Compage region’ (ex.
Agricultural region of the World).
 Whittlessy (1956) defined ‘compage region’ as a uniform region where all the features of the
physical, biotic and social environment are functionally associated with the human occupance.
 Later there was a shift to the use of economic criteria and social and political criteria such as
language, religion, tribal population, political allegiance etc. Economic formal regions were
initially based on types of industry or agriculture, but the scope of economic regionalisation
expanded to the use of other criteria like income level, rate of unemployment and rate of
economic growth. An important change in the scheme of regionalisation was an increasing
emphasis on multiple criteria regionalisation rather than single criterion regionalisation. This
indicated the increasing awareness of the thinkers and planners about the complexity that
exists in the human world and the need for a logical categorisation of the complexity that
exists over space. The world has been divided into a number of natural regions such as
equatorial, temperate, tundra, desert, savannah regions etc. based on the climate, natural
vegetation and location.
Functional (Nodal) Region

 A functional region that displays a certain functional coherence, an interdependence of parts

when defined on the basis of certain criteria is known as a functional region.
 The functional relationship are usually revealed in the form of flows, using social economic
criteria like journeys to work, shopping trips, flow or principal as well as non-perishable
communities, newspaper circulation, telephone, e-calls etc.
 A functional region, also known as a nodal region, organized around a node or focal point. It
is sometimes referred as a polarized region and is composed of heterogeneous units such as
cities, towns & villages which are functionally inter-related. Example – National Capital Region.
 The characteristic chosen to define a functional region dominates at a central focus or node
and diminishes in importance outward.
 The region is tied to the central point by transportation, communication systems or by
economic or functional associations.
 The functional linkage keep in changing in nature and volume.
 An example of a functional region is the circulation area of a newspaper. That area is centered
around the city in which the newspaper is published in. The farther away from the city of
circulation, the less people that read the newspaper (this phenomenon is known as distance
decay).

Vernacular(perceptional) region

 A “vernacular region” is a distinctive area where the inhabitants collectively consider

themselves interconnected by a shared history, mutual interests, and a common identity.
Such regions are “intellectual inventions” and a form of shorthand to identify things, people,
and places.
 Vernacular regions reflect a “sense of place,” but rarely coincide with established
jurisdictional borders.
 A vernacular region, also known as Perceptual region or Adhoc Region, is a place that
people exist as part of their cultural identity.
 These regions vary from person to person. They emerge from a person’s informal sense of
place. An example of a vernacular region would be the Cultural region or Transitional regions,
depressed areas, etc.

A planning region can be defined as a geographical region where designing and implementation of
the development plan is possible for tackling of regional problems. It could be both formal &
functional and generally transitional in nature: Example – Delhi Metropolitan Region.

Mental regions (mental map):

Mental region is a distorted egocentric image of place. The images which constitute mental maps (the
political, social, cultural, and economic values) held by men blend into an overall image about the
space around him. This image or mental map differs from person to person. For example, primitive
societies, particularly, have distinctive views about place and earth. The mental map of Naga differs
from that of Khasis. The Nagas in remote villages still measure the linear distances in their
conventional way of smoking pipe, as they are not familiar with the mile or kilometre scale. The Khasis
demarcate their territory on the basis of matrilineal society. The perception of space differs from rural
to urban areas and from developed to developing countries.
To summarize, region is a mental construct, whose sole purpose is the purposeful organisation of
spatial data. The regions help in understanding the man-nature interaction and provide a good tool
for the planning and socio-economic development of different segments of a country/world.
Types of Regions (Classification of Regions)

 Regions are classified on the basis of selected criteria and purpose or goal.
 Primarily they are classified as
 Naïve region: It is a mental construct/ idealistic and hypothetical and subjective in
nature (e.g. backward region).
 Instituted region
 Denoted region or Planning region
 Several geographers have worked on the typology of regions. Typology approach is also
known as classical approach divides the region into Single aspect region
 Multiple aspect region
 Regions of totality
 Functional regions
 Regions can also be classified as
 Regions based on the physical character
 Regions based on cultural character
 Regions based on an amalgamation of physical and cultural variables
 Regions can also be classified on the basis of scale for Multi-Level Planning
 Macro-Macro level for studying a whole nation or state
 Macro-level for studying states within a nation
 Meso level for studying districts
 Micro-level for studying city/village
 Micro minor level for studying a particular sector or household
 Based on Areal homogeneity regions can be classified into
 Physical region: It includes land, soil, climate, vegetation, etc. For example Tropical
region, Savanna region, Black soil region, Downs, etc.
 Economic region: It includes industrial regions, agricultural regions, services, etc., for
example, Special Economic Zones, Great North Indian Plains.
 Cultural region: the demarcation of the cultural region is based on language,
religion, etc. For example Hindi heartland, tribal regions, etc
 Campage Regions with more than one feature showing areal homogeneity. The
above regions were demarcated based on a single feature but in Campage more
than one features are selected.
 Based on Areal Linkages regions can be classified into
 Nodal region: Here there is one dominant urban centre around which smaller
urban/rural areas develop.
 Axial region: It is the region that develops along a corridor and performs a special
function. E.g. DMIC along National Highway 8
 Adhoc region: they are transitional regions not on a permanent basis, and are
generally backward regions. Here planning is done with a specific purpose in order
to develop the particular region.
 Now a day a more comprehensive approach is followed for better planning and
development.
Naïve regions

 These are largely mental constructs and they are perceived section of space
 These have ill-defined boundaries or transitional zone or no boundaries.
 The criteria selected for demarcation are abstract and such regions are more fanciful.
 Such regions don’t have a well-structured association of region-building elements and they
are vaguely identified.
 An example of the above is the cultural region because culture can’t be defined in precise
terms and within a cultural region, elements of culture have contradictions like marriage
rituals vary within the culture.
 The regions get their name by people living outside the region e.g. Mithila, Avadh, etc.
 These naïve regions are further classified as
 Metaphysical region: They don’t exist in reality and more based on philosophy. E.g.
concept of heaven/hell, the Marxist idea of the utopian society.
 World/physical regions: They are identifiable, observable but can never be confined
within a lined boundary. They are largely transitional. E.g. cultural region Mithila,
Avadh, etc.
Instituted region

 Instituted regions are perhaps the most familiar to the lay public. Open any atlas and the
pages are cluttered with them.
 They are created by authorities within some organization—for example, national, state, or
local governments, religious organizations, private businesses, and so on.
 These are bounded by administrative boundaries like district or state.
 The regions are created so that the organization can more easily administer whatever
activity it is engaged in, whether carrying out planning for the future, collecting revenues,
assembling data, or the like. Once instituted, these regions are recognized as existing entities
and have boundaries that are clearly demarcated, on paper if not always on the ground;
these are usually, but not always, agreed on by everyone.
 Boundaries can be drawn and areas can be demarcated (have empirical stats and not mind-
dependent)
 The criteria selected are quantifiable and concise. Such regions are institutionalized and can
have legal sanctions.
 Systems of instituted regions are often hierarchical; that is, they nest within one another.

Denoted region or Planning region

 Maps of denoted regions are commonly found in geographic and other academic
writings. They are created by scholars, perhaps most frequently by geographers, in order
to reduce the complexity of the real world so that it can better be understood.
 These are identified by regionalization technique, they are also called planning regions.
 For this reason, they might also usefully be designated as pedagogical regions. The process
of creating denoted regions (regionalization) is exactly analogous to the process of
classification. When any area (a piece of space) is being divided into regions, what is actually
happening is that the places that make up that space are being grouped together because
they have something in common.
 It is important to note that such regions are entirely the product of the mind of the person
who has created them and have no independent existence.
 Planning Region can be regarded as a district area unit, large and self-contained enough to
support life in it and yet small enough to facilitate the understanding of unique local
problems.
 It is a unified regional space for which planning decisions are applied (e.g. backward area
planning, desert area development plan, etc.)
 It is the segment of territory over which economic decisions apply.
 It may be formal or functional or a combination of both, such regions display coherence of
economic decisions.
 Denoted, or pedagogical, regions are of two kinds. Uniform regions, sometimes
called formal, are homogeneous (or uniform) with respect to certain selected phenomena,
and Nodal regions, sometimes called functional are also denoted but differ from uniform
regions in that the places included in them are defined as similar not because they are
homogeneous with respect to certain selected criteria but rather because they are all tied to
the same central place by the movement of people, ideas, and things. In other words, they
all experience more spatial interaction with the same central place or node than they do
with any other.
 Formal regions:
 These regions have certain fixed criteria
  The criteria may be physical. E.g. (topography climate, vegetation) or
economic like industrial or agricultural (income, rate of unemployment, rate
of economic growth) or cultural (language, central India tribal belt)
 They are largely fixed and static.
 They are identifiable by their composition or assemblage of the
phenomenon.
 Example –
 Natural regions like Savanna, rain forest.
 Linguistic regions
 The bioclimatic region, Physiographic region, economic region,
hydrological region
 Functional region:
 It is a geographical area that displays a certain functional coherence i.e.
interdependence of parts.
 It is composed of heterogeneous units such as towns, cities, and villages
which are functionally interrelated and working as a system
 The relationships are usually studied in form of flow (functional flow
between towns and villages). For e.g. journey to work trips or shopping trips,
the flow of goods and services, communication, etc.
 Thus, they have flow patterns (flow of goods and services from village to
towns) and development of nodes (city and village acts as nodes of flow).
 The criteria taken for the identification of functional region is objective and
identifiable e.g. Industrial region, Metropolitan region, Tourism region,
Administrative region, Political region, tribal area development, etc.
 Nodal region comprises of the node or core or hub which connects all
activities and unifies the region e.g. Mumbai is a node and the sprawling
region have interdependency to the node.
 They are suitable for designing and implementing development plans for dealing with
regional plans, for dealing with regional problems such as metropolitan or city region, river
valley region, axial region (DMIC), transitional/depressed region (e.g. KalahandiBolangir-
Koraput (KBK) region).
 According to C.R. Pathak and Amitabh Kundu, a planning region should have the following
characteristics:
 It should be large enough to contain a range of resources, conditions, and
attributes so as to serve the desired degree of economic viability and at the same
time not too large to make a comprehensive approach too general (should not lose
its uniqueness).
 It should have a fairly homogeneous economic structure as well as topographical
and socio-cultural homogeneity (e.g. KBK region).
 A balance is needed between homogeneity, nodality, and administrative
convergence while delimiting a region.
 Planning regions should be internally cohesive.
 Resource should be such that a satisfactory level of product combination for
consumption and exchange is feasible.
 It should have few nodal points, to regulate geographically contiguous areal units
(e.g. KBK region of Orissa).
 Planning Regions are generally arranged in hierarchical patterns such as Macro,
Meso, Micro, etc. Here the bottom-up approach is followed for planning purposes
(e.g. village to block to district).
Physical region

Natural Region
 Cultural region

economic regions