Most developed western countries have got some form of welfare state or welfare support for their population. These started in some countries in a rudimentary way in the late 19th century or the interwar years, but most countries saw rapid development in the years after WWII. This was when Britain saw the start of National Insurance, the NHS, free secondary school and university education etc. But all this costs a lot of money and western countries tend to spend a lot of money on welfare provision. In Britain its about 10% of GDP and 24% of government spending. State pensions alone cost about £155 bn a year. What is interesting for us is that welfare needs and expenditure tend of have distinct geographies, both internationally and regionally. Internationally there are big variations between the social democratic, Nordic countries which tend to have generous and expensive welfare states which also require high levels of taxation, and 'liberal' countries like the USA which have more rudimentary forms of support, with correspondingly lower taxes. In the middle are France, Germany and the Netherlands which have extensive welfare states. Many of the less developed countries have minimal or non existent welfare programmes. Within countries, there is often considerable variation in both need and expenditure. In Britain, there are distinct regional variations between the more affluent south east and the less prosperous regions of South Wales, the North, North East which all saw large scale de-industrialisation and collapse of employment in coal mining, ship building, textiles, etc. As a result these areas have higher levels of unemployment, sickness and disability with higher levels of benefit expenditure. These patterns are repeated in other western countries which have seen de-industrialisation and in these areas welfare benefits are an important form of income support.

In mid January 2025 President Trump announced that he wanted to take back control of the Panama Canal. We might ask what this is all about and the part answer is that the US originally built and operated the canal then handed it back to Panama in 1979. Cutting off journeys round south America it accounts for about 30% of US container trade. But the Panama canal is part of a much bigger picture. Over the last 50 years global trade has increased enormously and about 80% of it is by ship: container ships or bulk carriers for oil, gas, iron ore etc. But global maritime trade is not evenly spread across the globe. It follows certain routes, often the shortest ones, between major trading countries. Today, large amounts of oil and gas come from the Persian gulf, vast amounts of consumer goods come from China to the west. And given the worlds geography, to cut off the Cape of Good Hope or Cape horn and other circuitous journeys, most ships are travelling via canals or straits each of which may have strategic implications for control and access. This is why President Trump wants the Panama canal back under American control, why the Chinese are concerned about the Straits of Malacca and why almost everyone is concerned to keep the Suez canal and the straits of Hormuz open for navigation. Geography matters a lot for world trade.

In early January 2025 President Trump shocked the world by announcing that the US wanted to buy Greenland. The Danish government said it was not for sale. But this is not the first time that the USA has attempted to buy Greenland. It has made previous offers first in 1867 after it bought Alaska, then again in 1946 when it offered Denmark $100 million, and President Trump made an earlier offer in 2019. So, the idea of US buying Greenland has been around for a long time. In this episode we look at some of the reasons why Greenland is important for the US: economic and strategic. But in fact the US has been expanding territorially for over 200 years from the original 13 colonies. First in 1803 it made the Louisiana purchase from France of almost all of the Mississipi and Missiouri river basins - an area of 800,000 sq miles which effectively doubled the area of the USA. In 1819 it acquired Florida from the Spanish, then in 1845 it acquired Texas, in 1846 it took territory in the NW USA from British Canada: Oregon, Washington and Idaho, followed in 1848 by the Mexican cession which added California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and other bits: a third of the then area of Mexico. Then in 1867 another major purchase of Alaska for $7million from the Russian empire adding over 500,000 sq miles. We can subsequently add Hawaii and Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands....The USA has grown by territorial acquisition over 200 years. Viewed in this context the Greenland approach is not quite so bizarre as it may seem.

Drinking water is crucial for human survival and for agriculture. But, as the world's population grows and pressure on resources increases, water is increasingly becoming a scarce commodity. Conflicts over water have a long history and in recent decades more and more countries want to dam rivers to control the flow, provide water for agriculture and generate power. But activities upstream have a big potential impact downstream. Putting a dam in to generate electricity upstream may have very large consequences downstream in terms of water flow, agriculture and sediment built up. Although Europe, the USA, australia and other continents have experienced big floods in recent years there are also droughts and California is facing major problems. This episode looks, among other things, at the river Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq, and the major rivers, the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Mekong with headwaters in Tibet which are crucial for water supply in India, Pakistan and several countries in South East Asia.

People have always migrated from place to place or country to country whether it is to escape hunger, drought, war or persecution or to search for stability, security or better living standards. The nineteenth century was a century of large scale migration, both within Europe, and from Europe to the New World - the USA and Canada. The Irish potato famine saw millions of people migrate to avoid starvation. In post war decades there was large scale labour migration from southern to north western Europe and from European ex colonies to help fill labour shortages and to escape unemployment or low incomes. These waves of international migration have changed the ethnic composition of many European countries. But in recent decades international migration has become a hot topic: whether its the migrants coming across the Channel in small boats,from the Middle East or across the Mediterranean from North Africa, or from various Latin American countries into the USA via Mexico. It has led to considerable political debate and electoral changes. But international migration is complex and there are a variety of push and pull factors. This episode looks at some of the major issues around the topic of international migration.

Borders are extremely important, both in terms of national sovereignty and for human mobility and limits to it. In nomadic societies people often moved relatively freely with the seasons over long distances but borders have become much more important with the evolution of nation states in the last few hundred years. Borders today are marked on maps and sometimes marked on the ground with border fences or even worse. They can function both to keep people out and, as with the Berlin Wall, to keep people in. Britain has distinct maritime borders but in many places, borders are disputed and there are border conflicts and restricted border crossings. We will return to questions about national borders in future episodes.

The term 'postcode lottery' became popular in Britain in the late 1990's to refer to the variations in health care from one area or region to another. It suggested that variations or inequalities in health care provision or drug availability or treatment were essentially random and varied depending on where you lived. Subsequently the term has been widened to refer to variations in educational provision, job opportunities, welfare availability and many other things. But in some respects the term is a misnomer. There are variations from one area and one region to another but they are often geographically structured rather than just random. And there are big variations in access to financial services and to even retailing. In 1971 the geographer David Smith raised the question of 'who gets what, where and why?'And Julian Tudor Hart, a radical GP, put forward the idea of the 'inverse care law' where access to medical services often varied inversely with need. The poorest areas with greater need often had lower levels of provision and vice versa. Its an important geographical issue.

The Falkland Islands are very remote: 8,000 miles south of London, 700 miles north of the northern most part of Antarctica and 300 miles east of Argentina. Only discovered in 1760 by a British sailor, then variously settled and occupied by British, French and Spanish garrisons, the islands were claimed for the British crown in 1832. But, given their proximity, Argentina has, not surprisingly, long laid claim to them and still sees them as part of Argentina. Negotiations were under way to lease them to Argentina when they invaded in 1982 leading to Mrs Thatcher approving a task force to retake the islands. This podcast traces their history and asks the question what is their economic and strategic significance. Whaling and sealing have long ceased but they are a surprisingly important global source for squid fishing and forward base for Antarctic research.

Svalbard, or Spitzbergen, as it used to be called, is an archipelago in the Arctic ocean about midway between the north of Norway and the North Pole and midway between Greenland to the West and the islands of Novaya Zemblya in northern Russia. 60% of it is covered with glaciers and it has about 3000 people. Its a place most people have never heard of, but it has considerable geographical and strategic significance as this episode of Geography Matters makes clear

This is a taster for the Geography Matters podcast series. It explains why geography matters for understanding the world and how it intersects with history and with economics, politics, society and the environment. Everything happens in particular places and particular times. Geography looks at where and why and history looks at when and why. The series is presented by Chris Hamnett, emeritus professor of geography at King's College London and Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Chris is an urban geographer interested in big cities, and Klaus is a specialist in geopolitics, with an interest in the Arctic and the polar regions and in border conflicts.