A group of people speaking the same language, practicing the same religion observing similar manners and customs, engaged in similar type of work and living in similar types of community or group is unified by similar cultural traits. This cultural group may be said to form a cultural region, or a cultural realm. A major cultural realm must satisfy two conditions.
1. There must be some aspects of culture or cultural entity pervading the area and
2. There must be differentiation of cultural features from their neighboring regions.
The major cultural realms, which could be identified, are as follows.
(a) The Polar realm
(b) The European realm
(c) The Anglo American realm
(d) The Dry realm
(e) The African realm
(f) The Oriental realm
(g) The Latin American realm
(h) The Australian realm
(i) The Pacific realm
(j) The Communist realms (disappeared for the most part in the 1990ies)
Even though these cultural regions are conspicuous, the boundaries are arbitrary. These are grouped as formal cultural regions. The outstanding common cultural traits form the bases of classification, still no two cultural traits have the same attributes. Therefore functional cultural region is easily identified because there will be organized existence of political, social or economic function. Each functional division covers culturally heterogenous groups. Third but less popular division is based on vernacular of perception.
The perception of a definite cultural region is vague, less organized and lack sharp boundary. The cultural region as if is today is the product of cultural evolution which is nothing but cultural diffusion either by expansion, by relocation or both. The emergence of man as a dominant cultural representative indicates that independent ideas had spread out from its origin of invention as well as individuals or group migrating from one place to another with their idea of invention. Therefore migration whether it is in the past or in the present is the means of cultural diffusion and emergence of a new cultural system.
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page", St. Augustine said. Here at www.travel-university.org we believe that every page must be read and explored. Travel is an avenue of learning that no text or classroom can teach. The world is a living classroom and you the student. We invite you to the www.travel-university.org library where you can read general interest and detail oriented articles.
