Region and Regional Development — Geography STD 12 Commerce / Arts — Question

• A region is an area of a country or any part of the world having common features. Thus, there is a difference between two regions on the basis of its features.
• The common features may be physical (relief, climate, soil, natural vegetation, etc.), socio¬cultural factors (language, religion, etc.), man-made like political features (administrative or political boundaries).
• Regions may be small or large. The large regions include sub-regions. For example, the plateau region of India has various sub-regions such as Chota Nagpur plateau, Malwa plateau, Marwar plateau, Deccan plateau, etc.

The main characteristics of regions are :

• Regions have its geographical location mentioned in latitudes and longitude.
• Every region has a specific boundary, the area of another region starts beyond that boundary.
• The extent of a region depends upon the homogeneity of a region.
• There are sub-regions in one region and therefore regions can be arranged into different orders on the basis of same features.

There are two types of regions – formal and functional regions.
1. A formal region is also known as uniform region or homogeneous region. It is an area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics. It can be common physical characteristic such as relief or climate of the region. It can be socio-cultural or economic activity such as common language. For example, rice producing regions.

2. In some formal regions, there are boundaries. Thus, district, state or country may be formal region. For example, USA and Canada are the examples of formal regions.

3. In functional regions characteristics are not important but functions are more important.

4. In one functional region, there may be many political or physical regions but due to one common function it is said to be functional. For example, Mumbai metropolitan or Pune metropolitan regions.

5. Functional regions act as a focal point that connects surrounding areas by transportation and communication. For example, Mumbai metropolitan city is well connected with its surrounding areas through transportation.