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The City of Port-au-Prince, Haïti.— The very rapid population growth of the city of Port-au-Prince (from 494 000 inhabitants in 1971 to more than a million in 1983, according to our estimates) has resulted in profound urban mutations (an unprecedented spatial extension, densification and downgrading of the existing urban network) and an intensification of the problems which plague the Haitian metropolis. The spatial extension can be seen in all the «quarters» of the capital : areas of extremely poor habitat" (the swamps in the northern part of the city), working class areas (spread out over the hills), middle income areas (flat lands located in the northeast and northwest), wealthy and very wealthy areas (hills which have a more benign climate and a magnificient view). The densification affects the areas occupied by the poorest people (at times the density is more than 1 500 inhabitants per hectare) ; the formerly wealthy neighborhoods where the original population is being progressively replaced by low income groups ; and areas in the downtown district which are inhabited by new .migrants and become downgraded from the inside out. The metropolitan area is not officially recognized as such and the notion of «quarters» does not exist administratively. It is difficult to delimit the «quarters» geographically as well as socially ; for this reason, we have attempted to treat them based on the type of habitat and by determining large «homogeneous sectors».

Kinshasa a symbol of urban Africa. — Kinshasa appears as a symbol. Symbol because of its growth above the average, today it gathers all the constituent elements of latent urban crisis, over more than 200 km2. Symbol from the point of view of urbanization because of the richness and the variety of the studies which have been devoted to it, but which have actually remained dead letter apart from punctual realizations. The patent failure of urbanization attempts does not only keep on setting the question of controlling huge towns, with accuteness, but also that understanding their true identity. The deficiency of public authorities has not necessarily led to wild urbanization, and from that point Kinshasa can be taken as an exemple among multimillionaire towns : many sings show the human ability to produce and urban space different from the urban space defined by the usual criteria. Futher prospects for research will be produced by the permanence of self-construction, the multiplicity of self initiatives to fight against povety of to get rich, the importance of informality in urban economy, the rise of an urban class happy to live and «have grown in Kinshasa». Considering the town in its social reality, apart from its negative and spectacular aspects which are the only ones to be usually described, seems of prime importance. The geographer will proceed so as to know how people own their town, and to reveal the different spaces in which the inhabitants live : the historical factor responsible for the great splits of the urban texture, the socio-economic factor responsible for a large segregation in the different districts, and also the factor of everyday life and use dealing more with the individual than with social oppositions. All the urban society takes part in the birth of an African town which functions and adapts itself remarkably to the various processes of spontaneous urbanization.

A geographical approach to the partition of Samoa. — Such questions as «why are there two political sovereignties in Samoa ?» rather than one are no longer central to political geography. A recent shift of emphasis in favour of discussion of the geographical outcomes of political decisions in a regrettable weakening of the traditional breadth and depth of the field. This can be demonstrated by showing how the partition of Samoa cannot be explained without recourse to such geographical causes as distance, position, resources, size and environment.

Tourist Trade Revenues : Profitable, or a Bait for Ivory Coast ?. — Foreign currency obtained from the tourist trade is one of the arguments most put forward by certain countries of the Third World in order to justify the considerable financial expenditures they have undertaken so as to promote the growth of the tourist industry in their nations. An analysis of the balance sheets of the tourist complex of Assinie, Ivory Coast, leads one to question this view. Indeed, a very large part of the gross receipts in foreign currency is spent in the respective countries for the operation of the hotels and to pay the salaries of the European employees. Imports of intermediary consumer products also erode these receipts in that the developing countries do not possess a sufficiently diversified economy to assure a domestic supplying of the hotels. As a consequence, in 1976 only 5.2 % of the gross receipts derived from tourist-producing currencies actually remained in the country. This is very little, and one can thus wonder whether the financial effort devoted to the growth of an international tourist trade is really justified economically.