for reasons of security, convenience, environmental preservation, or for aesthetic
purposes. Buffer zones are increasingly used in urban planning, especially in large
cities, and also have played an important role ingeopolitics, in the form of buffer
states.
Buffer states are weaker countries sandwiched between two or more adversarial
states. Many buffer states were formed during the era of imperialism in the 18th
and 19th centuries. In principle, they are created to spatially insulate potential
combatants by placing distance between them. A classic example of a buffer state
is the country of Afghanistan. Theboundariesof the country were established pri-
marily by outside imperial powers (Great Britain and Russia) to avoid sharing a
common border and thereby limiting the potential for conflict. Afghanistan’s role
as a buffer can be readily seen in its unusual prorupted shape in the northeast,
along what is called the Wakhan Corridor. This portion of the country, consisting
of a narrow strip of territory extending about 200 miles to the east, was created
by British and Russian diplomats in 1895, who insisted that it be added to the boun-
dary of Afghanistan to separate their respective empires. A second example is Thai-
land, a country that served as a buffer between French Indochina and British
colonial holdings in Burma and India. Functioning as a buffer state, Thailand man-
aged to maintain its independence and avoid colonization by either European
power. Over time, buffer states may lose their function, as the political geography
or political relationships that brought them into being change. Thailand is no longer
considered a buffer, since the colonial powers it separated have withdrawn from the
region, and it does not stand between countries that have a history of
conflict.
Buffer zones designed to avoid conflict may be much smaller than buffer states.
Examples are demilitarized zones and no-fly zones. At the conclusion of organized
hostilities in the Korean War, a DMZ (demilitarized zone) was established
between North and South Korea along the 38th parallel. This zone is approxi-
mately 2.5 miles wide and crosses the entire Korean Peninsula from west to east,
a distance of over 150 miles. The Korean DMZ has been in place since 1953,
and is the longest-serving demilitarized zone in the world. Other DMZs created
after recent hostilities stand between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights,
between Iraq and Kuwait, and between the newly established country of Kosovo
and Serbia. No-fly zones are air spaces in which only certain aircraft may operate
and again are frequently established between hostile states.
Buffer zones also appear on a smaller scale. For example, in local zoning, a
metropolitan administration may create a buffer between an industrial area and a
residential neighborhood, restricting both types of development within the zone.
This is typically done to separate the two areas to protect property values in the
residential area by reducing the impact of noise, pollution, and congestion42 Buffer Zone