This study presents the theories that contribute to what the author has called geolinguistics, a discipline that deals with the external fate of languages as they are distributed over the face of the globe. Such a study is relevant in terms of official language planning when legislators seek to impose a given language on people of varied backgrounds. Such language planning requires the study of the linguistic forces of a given situation, including such characteristics as language power, language attraction, and language pressure. The author defines, illustrates, and discusses these terms and indicates their application to his theory of geolinguistics. (VM)