ABSTRACT
A substantial part of the literature in political geography is centered on the study of boundaries and their associated regions. Because political boundaries form the areal expression of the limits of jurisdiction and power of the system to which they belong and thus have held a strong attraction for students of political geography. The presence of the political boundary created a price differential in certain goods, which in turn became a factor in the location of retail outlets for these goods. The geopolitical idea regarding boundaries was rejected as representing but a "momentary and transitory expression of the power of adjacent countries," although Fischer did detect the "emergence of a new kind of boundary zone, a zone of economic and social penetration. Economic and various other changes could shift the secondary lines delimiting these zones of penetration, although the political boundary remained. The political geographer must seek a measure of a boundary's viability as such a divider.
