Sample Essential Statement (using Europe as the target region)

Part I—Physiography

• Younger, therefore higher, mountains bisect the continent from east to west
• A variety of ranges called Pyrennees, Alps, Appenines, Carpathians, Transylvanian Alps, Dinaric Alps, Rhodopes, and Pindus
• Result of recent, on-going tectonic convergence of African and Eurasian plates
• Source of substantial seismic and volcanic activity along uplifted Mediterranean landforms
• Older, therefore lower, mountains extend across northern Scandinavian lands
• Remnant of a much earlier mountain building event
• Source of substantial resources of high quality iron ore, relatively surface exposed and easy to reach
• Extensive plain, called the North European Plain, consisting of deposited materials from the erosion of both uplifted areas in between these two sets of mountain ranges
• Partially submerged, and heavily glaciated from an earlier “ice age” in the more northern reaches of this plain
• Parts of the plain closer to the foothills of the southern mountains are the most fertile and farmable parts of this lowland
• Also the source of huge deposits of fossil fuels in the form of Ruhr Basin coal, North Sea oil and natural gas, Donets Basin coal in Ukraine, English midlands coal, and petroleum in the Wallachian Plain of Romania
• Extensive iron resource in Alsace region of France as well
• Plain runs east to west from southern France to the Ural Mountains marking the border of Europe with Asia
• Widens considerably, east of Poland into Russia, extending from Black Sea in south to the Arctic Ocean in the north
• Continent is heavily embayed resulting in numerous peninsular extensions of the landmass into the oceans
• Extreme irregularity in the coastline with hundreds of inlets and harbors
• Hundreds, maybe thousands of offshore islands, some habitable, others just inhabitable hazards to navigation…rocks sticking out of the water
• Both north and south, but more in Mediterranean than in North/Baltic
• Result of extreme folding and faulting from previous tectonic activity and subsequent submergence with melting of continental glaciers
• Continent is well-drained with a vast network of rivers radiating outward north and south of the uplifted continental mountain spine
• Rivers in south not as long as those in the north because of more recent, thus more rugged uplifted topography
• Rivers in south cut through more uplifted areas, though, resulting in more physical difficulty in traversing the rugged terrain between valleys
• Northern rivers empty into North and Baltic Seas, southern rivers into Mediterranean Sea
• East flowing Danube, and the south-flowing Russian rivers (Don, Dnieper, Dniester, and Volga) empty into the Black and Caspian Seas
• West-flowing rivers of Iberian Spain and Portugal empty into Atlantic Ocean (except for Ebro emptying into Mediterranean)
• Complex drainage pattern a consequence of complex pattern of recent uplifting
• Many of these rivers present no barrier to navigation for long distances into the interior
• Plain of Hungary represents an unusual and separate interior plain surrounded by mountains
• Depressional consequence of tectonic convergence…the land warps down as well as up

There are three primary types of climates in Europe, with two minor expressions of more unusual climate types

• Marine northwest
• Relatively wet throughout the year, but with a slight late summer maximum; temperatures somewhat lower than places south, but winter temperatures milder than places east because of maritime influence
• Extends inland, along North European Plain, to Poland, becoming slightly more seasonally extreme eastward
• Primarily the result of relatively warm offshore ocean currents which supply ample moisture to air masses which then move onshore because of westerly air circulation patterns and the water precipitates out of the air mass when it encounters the relatively colder land mass; the land mass is colder than the offshore ocean at these latitudes.
• Mediterranean
• Relatively dry through summer months when the global subtropical high migrates northward and the arid air blasts across the Mediterranean sea from the south, plus the arid influence of the colder (relative to the land at this latitude) offshore ocean water; then wetter through the winter months when subtropical high migrates southward, and the land cools enough to be colder than the offshore ocean water. Overall a little dryer than the marine northwest climate in total annual rainfall
• Temperatures, overall, a little warmer throughout the year than in the north
• Extends throughout the landscape (with pockets of aridity in the interior Iberian and Anatolian peninsulas) south of the various east-west trending ranges of mid-continent Europe.
• Humid Continental
• Relatively moist throughout the year, but pronounced increase in the summer months; temperatures vary much greater throughout the year—winters colder, summers hotter than places west, although summer temps limited somewhat by high latitude position
• Extends throughout the northern and eastern reaches of the continent on the leeward slope of the Scandinavian Highlands in Sweden and Finland, and most of the Northern European Plain east of Poland and north of the Black Sea
• A smaller part of the southern parts of this extent, in the Wallachian Plain and Bessarabian region of Moldova, receives higher summer temps because of lower latitude position
• Semi-arid minor climate region
• Found in the middle Danubian Plain (Alfold region) in and around Hungary, due to the encircling of this plain by mountains creating a regional rainshadow effect
• Subtropical minor climate region
• Found in the Italian Po Valley and extending in a narrow band through Serbia, due to warming influence of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. These seas also provide a local source of water for regional air masses, plus the mountains serve to extract the water out of the air masses by cooling the uplifted air as it passes over them

Part II—Cultural Imprint

• Europeans are the original modernizers. Modernization rests upon a huge volume of exchanges and transactions also called commerce. Modern/Industrial society was established here first, and from here eventually included the entire world as colony. Its likely that the overwhelming maritime nature of northwest/north and south/southeast European cultures (extending back to the Phoenicians and Greeks) facilitated the large volume of trade between these two cultural realms both overland and across the water connecting the North/Baltic Sea cultures to the Mediterranean.

(Note to users of this sample template—for brevity I will not include the “why” parts of the following bullets, but will merely list a few more “what” bullets to indicate the diversity of potential responses in this section, before moving on to Part III. In your statements you should not adopt this abbreviated approach to explain the regional cultural signature)

• Modern Europeans moved onto the landscape from somewhere else resulting in a high degree of cultural separation: Celts in France and the UK, Germans in “Germany” (which extends beyond the borders of the nation-state called Germany to include modern Luxembourg, Austria, parts of France, Italy, and Switzerland, and Czech Republic), Romans in Italy, Vikings in Scandinavia, Slavs throughout much of Eastern Europe, Cossacks in Hungary, and Berbers in Iberian peninsula
• Most Europeans speak some variation of Indo-European language
• Europeans are overwhelmingly Christian
• Europeans are the originators of industrialism
• Europeans display a high degree of political collaboration through the European Union, but are also fiercely loyal to local ethnic tradition and continue to prefer local identification
• European economic society contains an identifiable “rich” core and a surrounding “poorer” periphery.
• Europeans tend to use scarce land very intensely, sometimes reclaiming it from being submerged at very large scales
• More and more Europeans continue to immigrate into the various nation-states providing the inevitable short-term stress that comes from inter-ethnic mixing
• Most Europeans live in cities
• Peoples inhabiting different parts of Europe behave in very different ways, consume and produce very different products/commodities, etc. (these could be further explained by European sub-region.
• Etc. etc.

(The user should not feel limited to the points in this sample in either number or type. In every world region there are myriad aspects that signify cultural imprints. Just be sure that you follow the prescribed form of: 1) what the aspect is, and 2) why it is what it is)

Part III—Synthesis

• Europeans densely inhabit a relatively “cramped” continental space. In this space they have, through intense industrial processes, converted a lot of natural resources into manufactured products. These processes create a lot of waste material that, when disposed of nearby, contaminates ecosystems on a large scale. Thus, much of Europe is despoiled in some fashion to a very high degree. This makes the population somewhat more sensitive to environmental issues giving these kinds of groups more political clout than in other places, and puts a premium on improving technology to manage the waste stream.
• Centuries of close co-inhabitation have increased the need for widespread collaboration, hence European political society tends to be much more open and inclusive than other places. Even local societies evolving in relative isolation—which are numerous throughout the continent because rugged topography makes moving difficult and costly, thereby serving to restrict encounters over time, thus resulting in severe cultural complexity as well—are somewhat forced at larger scales to consider the needs of others in the formation of their own policies.
• Rugged east-west oriented topography tended to channel trade along a few paths between North/Baltic Sea cultures and Mediterranean cultures. These routes became valuable routes, the keepers of which were entrusted to maintain their safety to facilitate the trade. This topographic orientation also served to separate northern peoples from southern as each group tended to orient themselves along the major drainage streams. Movement between these streams being more difficult in the south, the cultures in these areas evolved more distinctly from each other than did those of the north.
• The overwhelming maritime nature and outlook of European society, plus the inevitable scarcity of natural wealth for so many people contributed greatly to the European push towards colonization of foreign places to enrich themselves through the acquisitions of empire. Many European peoples engaged in empire-building through the colonial process over the years creating a structure that became so massive that it was difficult and expensive to manage, ultimately collapsing under its own weight.
• The physical complexity of continental Europe contributed greatly to the resulting cultural complexity that was extreme in the more rugged areas of the land mass. This complexity, plus the aforementioned propensity of Europeans to commerce, increased the encounters of unlike peoples over time which required the development of sophisticated means for sharing this rather small and scarce land mass. Hence, governments are similarly complex, and heavily relied upon to design the parameters of commerce between unlike peoples, and mediate disputes between these same peoples. The European Union is a consequence of this long-standing tradition of collaboration.

(and on and on and on as long as you’d like…in general, each statement should have 3-5 statements of synthesis similar to those shown here to be considered “B” or “A” quality. Of course more is always better)

Good Luck to all.