Brülhart and Torstensson (1996) contend that a country's periphery region, such as a coastal
region or border region, could also be classified as a polarised region since such regions function as
trade routes with the rest of the world. Geographic distance, high transportation costs, and barriers to
trade encourage the development of peripheral coastal polarised regions. Similarly, national internal
border peripheral regions may become polarised regions due to an abundance of natural endowments,
economic historical development, and qualitative and quantitative barriers to trade. In a pre-integration
situation, their economic development is contingent upon their industrial structure, and trade with
foreign regions. Therefore, it would thus be erroneous to assume a priori that all peripheral regions
have the characteristics of natural regions.
2.6 Natural Region
A natural region is typified by geographical and physical characteristics such as climate, soil
conditions, land fertility, height above sea level, and geographic location in space. The economic
activities associated with natural regions include agriculture, forestry, mining, shipbuilding, and
tourism. A natural region is relevant for determining the optimal spatial dispersion of agricultural
production, in order to minimise the transportation costs of agricultural products. Forestry and mining
are fixed natural resource endowments, while shipbuilding is located along coastal waterways. A
natural region exhibits wide population dispersion with many small urban areas characterised by
processing and local manufacturing industry and by low per capita income levels (Paelinck and
Nijkamp, 1975).
2.7 The Regional Nomenclature
The preceding discussion of region types leads to the following regional nomenclature used in
this paper: a polarised region will be called a core region; and a contiguous region will be known as an
adjacent region. The nomenclature for the periphery region remains the same, and the term periphery
includes the characteristics of the natural regions. This creates a three-region classification of national
administrative region types. The advantage of this classification lies in the ease with which it