This resource paper on political geography is part of a series designed to supplement undergraduate geography courses. Starting with a broad outline of the relationship between human spatial and societal organization, it examines cross-cultural perspectives on the political organization of space and the emergence of the nation-state as a distinctive spatial expression. Spatial organization is viewed as a product of human societies and their institutions to control and direct the key political processes of competition, conflict, and cooperation. Part two examines the concept of territoriality, its historical evolution in man, and its contemporary implications for human society. Through its influence on feelings of spatial identity, on the development of a sense of geographical exclusiveness and segregation, and on a real patterning of human interaction, territoriality adds meaning and interpretability to the complex layers of the earth's formal and function regions. Included in the appendices are suggestions for further study and a list of related readings. (Author/DE)