What are factors that affect one's culture?

There are so many factors that affect one's culture that entire books are written on this subject. I will discuss a couple here: geography and proximity. 

Geography has a profound effect on one's culture because one's surroundings and the raw materials one has to work with strongly influence the attributes of any culture. For example, an island society is quite likely to have a culture in which the sea plays a great role. There might...

There are so many factors that affect one's culture that entire books are written on this subject. I will discuss a couple here: geography and proximity. 

Geography has a profound effect on one's culture because one's surroundings and the raw materials one has to work with strongly influence the attributes of any culture. For example, an island society is quite likely to have a culture in which the sea plays a great role. There might be rituals associated with placating the sea or rituals to ensure successful fishing. The dishes of such a culture are going to be largely seafood. Art and music will likely be influenced in some way by the sea. Japanese origin mythology posits that gods in the sea created the earth. The sea is a central feature in an island culture. In an area that has a great deal of land that can be cultivated, there are likely to be rituals based on the importance of the harvest. Art and music are likely to reflect the importance of the land. The architecture and art of a culture are going to reflect the materials available to create with. A place with no trees will have more stone architecture. A place with little natural clay will not have so many brick buildings. A culture that has no raw materials to make pots and dishes is not going to have that form of decorative art, but woven baskets may be a prominent feature. We work and create beauty with what we have at hand. The geography and raw materials play a central part in any culture.

Proximity is important because all cultures that are not completely isolated are influenced by surrounding cultures.  In the United States, for example, to our south we have a Mexican culture that has strongly influenced the states that are closest to Mexico. Many Americans enjoy Cinco de Mayo; a great deal of Mexican food is available and popular. Mexican music has drifted here, as well as Mexican art. I live in Pennsylvania, and in the past few years, at least three shops with Latino art and jewelry have opened in my neighborhood. I don't think that any culture can withstand the influence of a proximate culture completely. In Canada, there is one French province, Quebec, and it is unable to withstand the prevailing Anglo culture of Canada; in Spain, there is a strong North African influence on the arts. Certainly, Spain was conquered by the Moors, but even had they not been conquered and simply very close to North Africa, their art, their architecture, their food, and their music would have been influenced by the North African cultures. As the world gets smaller and smaller through the ease of travel and the internet, it seems that all cultures can be proximate in some ways. I hope this does not flatten out all cultures, causing them to lose their individual beauty.