CHAPTER 11 - MIGRATION

Physical and human factors influence where people settle. However, people do not always stay in one location. Migration refers to the movement of people from one area to another. Generally, migration refers to a permanent move by people to a new location.

AN ESSENTIAL QUESTION

What reasons cause people to migrate to different areas?

GEOGRAPHIC TERMINOLOGY IN THIS CHAPTER

Migration Push-and-Pull

factors Social Factors Ethnic Persecution Religious

Persecution

Environmental Factors

Forced Migration Physical Barriers Land Bridge

IMPORTANT IDEAS

A. Political, economic, social, and environmental push-and-pull factors cause people to migrate, or move, from one place to another.

B. Physical geography often affects the routes that human migrations take.

WHY PEOPLE MIGRATE

Geographers generally divide the reasons for migration into “push” and “pull” factors. Push factors are those events that push people out of their old location, while pull factors are the attractions that lure migrants to a new location.

Often, people migrate because of a combination of both “push” and “pull” factors.

WHY PEOPLE MIGRATE (CONT.)

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION

SOCIAL FACTORS: Religious Persecution

Social factors concern how people organize into groups, such as religious groups. Throughout history, many societies have persecuted people because of their religious beliefs. Religious minorities will often leave a place if they face such persecution.

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

POLITICAL FACTORS

Political factors can also lead people to migrate. Politics concerns governments, government policies, wars, and citizens’ rights. People often flee their homes when they become scenes of armed conflict arising out of political differences. Such fighting might occur because of an invasion by another country or because of a civil war caused by conflicts between rival groups. People also migrate to escape political persecution or to enjoy greater political freedoms and rights in a new place.

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

SOCIAL FACTORS: Ethnic Persecution

People also migrate when they are persecuted for being members of a particular ethnic group.

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

ECONOMIC MOTIVES

When people in a society suffer from extreme poverty, this “pushes” some of them to attempt to leave. The motivation is greater if people have heard that conditions elsewhere are better. For example, in the early 20th century, many people left impoverished conditions in Eastern and Southern Europe to come to the United States, where they sought new economic opportunities. Economic motives may be strengthened by social ones when other relatives have already migrated to a place.

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

People sometimes migrate because of the environment. Some groups traditionally migrate with the seasons. For example, the Fulani of Africa move south with their herds in the dry season, and return north in the wet season. Changes in the environment, such as cooling or rising temperatures, or a series of droughts, may lead people to migrate. Sudden environmental catastrophes, such as crop failures, floods, fires, and earthquakes, can also force people to migrate.

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FACTORS: Forced Migration

Sometimes migration is not voluntary but forced. Forced migration has accompanied war and the persecution of people, throughout most of history.

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

FACTORS LEADING TO MIGRATION (CONT.)

Another example of forced migration occurred in North America. British and American settlers uprooted millions of Native American Indians. These Native American Indians were forcibly relocated to distant and often inhospitable reservation lands. Native tribes were similarly removed from their lands in South Africa and Australia so that they could be replaced by white farmers and settlers.

HOW PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AFFECTS THE FLOW OF MIGRATION

Factors of physical geography will often determine the particular path that migration takes. Some factors – mountains, deserts, or dense forests – may pose natural barriers to migration or shape its course. People usually migrate through valleys and along water routes.

HOW PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AFFECTS THE FLOW OF MIGRATION (CONT.)

They may also cross “land bridges.” For example, thousands of years ago, Siberia was connected to Alaska by a land passage. Asian hunters, following herds of animals, crossed this land passage to migrate to Alaska. Gradually, these hunters spread throughout North and South America, becoming Native American Indians. Later, the oceans prevented further migration into the Western Hemisphere until European technological improvements led to the European conquest and colonization of these regions after 1492.

PHYSICAL BARRIERS In North America, the Appalachian Mountains once stood as a

barrier to migration from the East. Migration only occurred through specific mountain passes. Later, the Rocky Mountains and deserts of the Southwest remained natural barriers to migration. To reach California quickly, people sailed to Panama (8 weeks) or around South America (3 months); overland travel took even longer, until the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.

PHYSICAL BARRIERS (CONT.) In Africa, the Sahara Desert acted as a physical barrier limiting the

amount of migration between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, these regions developed separately, with different groups of people migrating within each region. Physical barriers also once limited migration to China. To prevent Central Asian tribes from crossing the Asian steppes and mountains into China, China’s emperors built the Great Wall. This human structure reinforced these natural barriers to migration.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF HUMAN CULTURES TODAY Most scientists

believe that human beings first originated in East Africa. From there, people spread throughout the world. The result of all these migrations is the distribution of cultural groups we find around the world today, which you studied in Chapter 9 (Cultural Regions), earlier in this unit.