Geog 202 Ch 10- Central Asia

Front 1

Central Asia is a crossroads for ______________ and a frontier for ________________.

Back 1

nomadic cultures; agricultural societies

Front 2

A Mythic region. _________ have played an important role in
West’s imagination since 1700s

Back 2

mountains

Front 3

Uplift fold mountains (mostly the __________) from world’s
greatest & ongoing tectonic collision. Stable convergent
plate boundary

Back 3

Himalayas

Front 4

Complex series of mountain barriers and remote
agricultural basins promotes sense of ____________
(e.g. The Man Who Would be King) & _______________ (e.g. Lost Horizon)

Back 4

remote kingdoms; “lost,” thus mythic,
spaces

Front 5

Desert region to north extends from _____________ to
_____________.

Back 5

European Russia to Northern China

Front 6

_______________ since last ice retreat has made area less
attractive to human settlement

Back 6

Desertification

Front 7

Ideal land route across ____________ for silk trade from Roman Empire to European expansions

Back 7

inner Eurasia

Front 8

Historically believed that region’s harsh environment produced ________________________

Back 8

rugged and aggressive nomadic cultures

Front 9

Nomadic agriculture simply a logical response to ______________ and __________

Back 9

low rainfall and spread-out food resources

Front 10

3 major environmental issues in central asia

Back 10

desertification (since end of ice age), salinization of soil, dessication of lakes

Front 11

the world's only environmental disaster visible from space

Back 11

dessication of the aral sea

Front 12

what's to blame for the aral sea dessication?

Back 12

soviet diversion of the amu darya river to irrigate cotton

Front 13

how much money was stolen in the uzbek "cotton swindle"?

Back 13

$6.8 billion

Front 14

TFRs influenced by Soviets (except Afghanistan) so they are ____ for Muslim countries

Back 14

low

Front 15

______ retains a lethally high TFR at 5.6- down from 6.8- but no evidence that modernization is occurring

Back 15

Afghanistan

Front 16

____________'s TFR declines from 2.7 to 2.0, now ___

Back 16

Mongolia, 2.2

Front 17

One of the world's least densely populated regions, but much of it _____________

Back 17

unsuited to human life

Front 18

__________, often abandoned to desert, dot the old silk route

Back 18

ancient cities

Front 19

the populations are densest in ____________, near region's periphery

Back 19

river valleys

Front 20

along the edge of the ________________ has streams from snow melt, allowing irrigated agriculture, thus human settlement

Back 20

tarim basin

Front 21

tarim basin has ________________

Back 21

an uninhabitable desert core

Front 22

describe the migration pattern in central asia

Back 22

chinese in, russians out

Front 23

all historic turkestan suited to ____________

Back 23

cotton

Front 24

western turkestan is modern states of ________ and ___________, both drawn on map by stalin but on czarist base

Back 24

uzbekistan and turkmenistan

Front 25

eastern turkestan is now __________________

Back 25

china's Xinjiang autonomous region

Front 26

__________ migrated into xinjiang to grow cotton

Back 26

ethnic chinese

Front 27

________ is the fastest growing region for cotton agriculture in the world

Back 27

xinjiang

Front 28

recently, stalinist 'stan nations have begun _______________

Back 28

de-russification

Front 29

there are substantial refugee flows, especially out of _________________

Back 29

afghanistan

Front 30

xinjiang has gone from no cotton to _____% of china's output in the past decade

Back 30

30%

Front 31

______ is now world's main cotton grower

Back 31

china

Front 32

the mongol empire (1200s) was unsustainable because of __________________________, but in its time the world’s greatest contiguous empire

Back 32

internal political conflicts in such a huge
region

Front 33

Nomadic peoples occasionally united under a strong leader, reached out to conquer rich surrounding _____________ (especially east to China)

Back 33

agricultural regions

Front 34

India tended to be protected from mongol empire by _____________

Back 34

Himalayan barrier

Front 35

Less pressure of nomads to conquer __________

Back 35

europe

Front 36

_______________ made europe difficult to conquer (impossible after 802 AD)

Back 36

complex european states system

Front 37

Diffusion of ________________ into European Russia pushed Mongols back into steppe grassland from 1200s on

Back 37

horse/plow agriculture

Front 38

4 reasons why mongols were conquered

Back 38

(a) Europeans expanded around Eurasia by sea to cut silk route (1500 on).
(b) European states developed highly disciplined militaries (1600 on).
(c) Europeans switched to firearms (1600 on).
(d) Railroads connected Central Asian frontiers to regions of agricultural.
and industrial production around Moscow (after 1860)

Front 39

highly complex _________ geography

Back 39

linguistic

Front 40

no correspondence between ___________ and ________ boundaries

Back 40

linguistic and national boundaries

Front 41

__________ speakers of Afghanistan good e.g-- no “Pashtunistan” & as many Pashtuns in Pakistan as Afghanistan

Back 41

Pashtun

Front 42

afghanistan was never colonized, often "_____________"

Back 42

occupied

Front 43

afghanistan is one of the world's most _____________ countries

Back 43

ethnically complex

Front 44

afghanistan has no ________________ (though this is common to islam)

Back 44

nation-state ideal

Front 45

___________’s claims to control afghanistan rigorously
opposed by other ethnic groups

Back 45

Pashtun

Front 46

Suspicion that Taliban’s Islamic extremism was more __________ than Islam

Back 46

Pashtun

Front 47

afghanistan is home to 2 _______ armies' and 1 ______ armies' graveyards

Back 47

2 british and 1 soviet

Front 48

Since collapse of Mongols and nomadic cultures in face of more efficient agricultural societies, region has been pinched between expansive powers of _________, _______, and __________

Back 48

China, Russia, and Britain (in India)

Front 49

British power peaked 1904 w/control of

Back 49

Tibet

Front 50

______________ and ____________ allowed Russia to move in to control most of region 1919-80

Back 50

British withdrawal from India and a weak China

Front 51

_____________________, plus _______________ has made China strong (has taken back Tibet & pushing hard into Xinjiang). Several smaller states seeking to move into current Russian vacuum in west (Iran, Pakistan, Turkey)

Back 51

Recent collapse of USSR after their Afghan War, plus internal economic reform

Front 52

Several smaller states seeking to move into current Russian vacuum in west (_______, _____, ________)

Back 52

Iran, Pakistan, Turkey

Front 53

British learned (the hard way) to control through ______

Back 53

client states

Front 54

USSR controlled through “independent” allied ________________ (MPR 1919) or, later, thru nominally independent republics

Back 54

Communist states

Front 55

China controls through _______________ and ________________ (esp. in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang)

Back 55

direct rule of nominally “autonomous regions” and settlement of Han Chinese

Front 56

Region may have reserves of ______ and ________ second only to SW Asia/N Africa. If reserves are proven will become a vital focal point for global politics

Back 56

oil and natural gas

Front 57

Principal problem is _______________ as well as shipping oil & gas out by pipelines passing thru regions that exact _____________________ (i.e. how many hundred $ a barrel are you willing to pay?)

Back 57

access to sea; high transfer or protection costs

Front 58

Drugs are lightweight, have __________ (as was silk)

Back 58

high value

Front 59

By 1999 Afghanistan was world’s main ___________ growing region (CIA)

Back 59

opium poppy

Front 60

Taliban financed itself thru __________

Back 60

drug trade

Front 61

main turkmenistan income from ________

Back 61

cotton

Front 62

turkmenistan, azerbaijan, and kazakhstan also profit from ______ and _______

Back 62

oil and natural gas

Front 63

____ and ____ not worth much

Back 63

cotton (uzbekistan) and sheep (mongolia)

Front 64

uzbekistan has only had a ______________ in GNI per capita

Back 64

small increase

Front 65

Income from opiates unknowable but creamed off
by ____________ and ______________

Back 65

kleptocratic gvts. and local warlords

Front 66

Most legal trade with _________

Back 66

Russia

Front 67

Cotton crucial to ___________ and _________

Back 67

Uzbekistan and Turkemenistan

Front 68

No direct access to _______

Back 68

sea

Front 69

Excessive dependency on ______ not good

Back 69

opium

Front 70

Oil and natural gas won’t help. Most regimes are _______________

Back 70

kleptocracies

Front 71

Impact of ________________ on Afghanistan devastating tho US occupation has caused mild improvements for women who now live 51 years to men at 48 (CIA 2011 data)

Back 71

Taliban

Front 72

Soviet style problems with life expectancies for ______

Back 72

males

Front 73

In rest of Central Asia more relaxed attitude to women (even in Islamic countries), plus long run impact of Soviet drive for equality shows up in relative equality in _____________ and ______ (note impact of Taliban in Afghanistan again, however)

Back 73

work force and literacy