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Fact 1 : An overwhelming majority of the world's non-developed countries, except those who have suffered from a communist government at some point (China/Russia), have a non-temperate climate over most of their territory. By temperate I mean a climate which has cooler temperatures in winter, a fairly normal topography and acceptable levels of rainfall. This excludes tropical climates, extremely rainy climates or conversely desertic climates, and alpine climates. If you look at the world's non-developed regions :
Africa : tropical or arid or alpine.
The most developed regions of Africa being its extremes in latitude which have the most temperate climates (the Mediterranean coast and southern Africa)
South America : either tropical or alpine, the most developed parts being once again Uruguay and Argentina, both the most temperate (as well as Chile)
Asia : Southeast Asia is all about tropical or equatorial climates and this is where you find the poorest countries (Laos, Vietnam, etc.); Western Asia (Afghanistan) has a mountainous topography which is improper for economic development; India has a tropical climate for most parts with heavy rains during the monsoon period - the rest being deserts (Northwest) and mountains (Himalayas).
Middle East : scorching hot deserts. Enough said.
Europe : The most developed countries tend to be the most temperate (Germany and so on) while the less wealthy tend to be the hotter and drier Mediterranean regions (Portugal, Greece, southern Italy).
Fact 2 : this is almost equally true on a reverse perspective. The richest and most developed countries almost all possess a temperate climate (Canada, USA, northern Europe).
Only one country in the world has both a high development and a megathermal climate (coldest month 24 hour average >18°C) : Singapore.
I am talking about the majority of a country's territory. Of course cities like Miami are developed, but Florida is only a tiny part of a overwhelmingly temperate country.
Even Hong Kong and Taiwan have temperate winters.
How do you think weather affects economic and human development?
Discuss.
Actually this is not true, nearby Brunei also has high human development and is entirely tropical, this is mainly due to oil production though.
Overall,I think this dichotomy has to do with the fact that historically that in more tropical regions, agriculture and development were more difficult due to the hot climate. In tropical areas, the soil tends to be very poor and washed away easily by heavy rains which makes it not as fertile as in temperate areas. In deserts, same thing, soil is very poor.
Also in tropical regions up until recently, you had a very high mortality rate caused by the higher number of indigenous diseases like malaria, dengue fever, sleeping sickness, ebola etc which either don't exist or haven't existed in more northerly countries for a long time.
Colonialism is another reason for the north-south divide. When Europe got wealthy, they colonized the less technologically advanced southern/tropical regions of the world and exploited them. These people never were able to develop properly because the colonial governments were taking all of their resources and taking advantage of them.
In areas of countries that are mostly temperate but have tropical regions, the tropical areas were able to get more developed due to capital inflows and even then, they tend to not be the richest areas of the countries in question.
These are a few of the main reasons I think there is a temperate/tropical divide in human development.
Fact 1 :An overwhelming majority of the world's non-developed countries, except those who have suffered from a communist government at some point (China/Russia), have a non-temperate climate over most of their territory.
True, -it seems that some of the earth’s most populous and economically well-developed countries are located in temperate climates including North America, Europe, and East Asia. There seems to be a disproportion reflection of poverty and low economic development below 30 latitude (N/S). Most of the non-developed countries seem to be in the lower latitudes.
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond explores this. I haven't read the book yet, but I've heard enough people mention it to get the gist of it. One topic that is mentioned is that although North America has a temperate climate, it wasn't as civilized because corn, native to the Americas, was harder to grow by hand than wheat/barley, native to Eurasia.
This article I found sums up quite well why power has shifted from different regions around the world over time - the gist is that it's mostly a matter of geography and comparative advantage rather than pure climate per se, though it makes sense that before air conditioning and when most work was outdoor manual labour societies in hotter climates didn't develop as much of a work ethic as in the temperate north.
I would tend to agree, even within a country, most people live in and gravitate towards temperate areas.
Here in Oz, the vast bulk of the population -over 80%, lives below 30 degrees South, with only South-East Queensland a sizeable population outside of this.
Temperate climates are much more agreeable to most people, and I believe result in more productive workers etc - who don't have to contend with extremes of heat for a sustained length of time.
It is no accident that this is where most people live IMO.
This is an unsual country whereby there is an option to live in either a tropical or temperate location. For most people, the prospect of living in the tropics has very limited appeal.
Last edited by Derek40; 02-03-2011 at 05:00 PM..
Reason: extra line
I would tend to agree, even within a country, most people live in and gravitate towards temperate areas.
Here in Oz, the vast bulk of the population -over 80%, lives below 30 degrees South, with only South-East Queensland a sizeable population outside of this.
Temperate climates are much more agreeable to most people, and I believe result in more productive workers etc - who don't have to contend with extremes of heat for a sustained length of time.
It is no accident that this is where most people live IMO.
This is an unsual country whereby there is an option to live in either a tropical or temperate location. For most people, the prospect of living in the tropics has very limited appeal.
Doesn't seem so in the US. Lots of NYers moved to Florida. But I suppose it's because we have only a choice between cold or heat, while your temperate areas are mild.
For most people, the prospect of living in the tropics has very limited appeal.
Canada's cold is so severe and so long lasting
that I believe easily half of Canadians would thrilled to live in a climate like Cuba, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Cancun.
Most of us probably wouldn't even consider what tropical living really means; constant bugs, tropical diseases, tropical storms.
(or that is considered less annoying than our winters)
We'd probably be like "...Horray, I can throw out my snow shovel!..."
It seems like when you get to northern Europe, the northern US, Canada, Russia, etc., most people would rather prefer southward climates. And of course not many people want to settle polar/subarctic climates so those places aren't highly developed.
Based on gut feeling, I'd suppose most people would prefer the warmer of the mild European-type climates or Mediterranean climate. But if you then go further south, into the Middle East, South America, Africa, southern Asia etc. most people would find it oppressive. (Also, before industrialization happened in history, with air conditioning and modern medicine, I'd imagine people would avoid the tropics because of the disease rather than be eager to vacation there -- tropical civilizations like India, Ethiopia or the Mayans/Aztecs liked taking to their regions' highlands).
Just taking a crude estimate, perhaps 35-50 degrees from the equator would be roughly the latitudes of most of the world's developed countries, or most of the cities within the countries (with Europe being on the higher latitude end of it and Australia, and the southern US, being on the lower end).
Colonialism is another reason for the north-south divide. When Europe got wealthy, they colonized the less technologically advanced southern/tropical regions of the world and exploited them. These people never were able to develop properly because the colonial governments were taking all of their resources and taking advantage of them.
The Aborigines had resided in Australia for thousands of years prior to European colonisation. In all that time they had not so much as invented the wheel. What makes you think they would have eventually started mining iron ore?
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