Abstract
The field of regional studies remains a fuzzy branch of knowledge. The structure of regional studies remains the subject of considerable debate within the scholarly community. Such a disagreement over its building blocks and their relationships represents a major barrier to the further development of the field as an interdisciplinary endeavor. In pursuit of progress, it may be helpful to take a closer look at general taxonomies that can be used to classify and/or categorize the core concepts that are located within this field of study., This article attempts to do just that. After considering the relevant core concepts, it proposes a lightweight ontology that could be used to formally define the subfields of regional studies and the relations that exist between them. To be clear, the adoption of this generalized way of thinking would mark a radical departure from the status quo.