What were, and are, the most strategic locations on Earth? Physical geography has not changed much over the course of human history (save for our structures and trash), but I imagine strategy is also a function of human agglomerations - where people were at the time, where they were after that, where they are today. Who hates whom, who is cousins of whom. In short, physical geography presents rather fixed (dis)advantages, while human geography renders this or that place more or less relevant at a particular time.
Feel free to take the prompt in any historical direction (commerce?), but I was thinking mostly in terms of conventional warfare.
Chile
>>570014
Some Chokepoints niqqa
>Panama
>Suez
>Bosporos
>Moluccas Strait
Whole fucking Southeast Asia actually
>Hormuz Strait
>Gibraltar.
As for overland chokepoints, only shit I know is Hindu Kus and Ferghana.
Great Britain
>>570014
The heartland of the world island (pivot point in pic related) is literally the most defensible spot on earth as far as conventional warfare goes.
The middle east and eastern europe are the choke points into the heartland.
>>570081
Who's the geopolitical author behind this?
Sibir
>>570120
I don't know who the author of this map is, but heartland theory forms the basis of most modern geostrategy.
Brzezinski uses it.
Dugin uses it.
I think it was originally proposed by Halford Mackinder in 1904...but it's pretty common as far as modern "how to take over the world" strategies go.
Rotterdam port. Oil, cargo and Rhine access
>>570014
Gibraltar has some significance.
The Rhine has been a border for a two thousand years at least.
Overal I'd say the Low Countries have a very interesting position from a commercial point of view.
>>570146
>Halford Mackinder in 1904
That's the name I was looking for.. Thanks
New Orleans!
and other estuaries
>>570014
*ULTIMATE /HIS/ STRATEGIC LOCATIONS MASTERLIST*
>Straits of Gibraltar
>Bosporus straits
>Straits of Malacca.
>Cape of Good Hope
>English Channel
>Magellan's strait.
>Panama canal
>Egypt
>Florida
>Horn of Africa
Australia
Start there, build an army, and you can only be attacked on one front
Then you make your way up and steamroll while everyone is risking it on all sides
>>570264
All of this, barring Florida. There are other ways into the Gulf. Also, I'd replace the Straits of Magellan with just Cape Horn in general.
Malta is an extremely good strategic location.
>easy to defend
>in the middle of the mediterranean
>>570081
i understand the defensive point of that but what kind of country wants a fully steppe-desert-tundra geography?
>>570014
>The Sahara
>Australian interior
>Siberia
>Tibet
>Amazonia
>Greenland
>The Falklands
>Salt lake city
>mongolia
>>570146
This shit's been around before 1904, it was used as justification for the Great Game between Britain and Russia over control of Central Asia.
>>570014
I thought of two kinds:
Naval Chokepoints (blue) and "areas of land that are easy to support large populations in due to fertility" (green).
There are other kinds of strategic locations, but they really depend on the priorities of the individual nation.
>>570081
>most defensible area
>not the Continental US
OCEANS EAST AND WEST
DESERT SOUTH
FROZEN NORTH
NO EASY INVASION ROUTES FROM MORE POPULOUS REGIONS
