CHAPTER ONE

-Basic Geography Concepts-

Click the link below to study

vocabulary:

VOCABULARY

DEFINE GEOGRAPHY AND HUMAN GEOGRAPHY AND

EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THE SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE

Geography: The study of where things are found on Earths

surface and the reasons for the locations
Human Geography: the branch of geography dealing with how
human activity affects or is influenced by the earth's surface.

Where are people and activities found on Earth?

Why are they found there?

The Spatial Perspective: Geography looks at the world from a

spatial perspective -- seeking to understand the changing
spatial organization and material character of Earth's surface.
One of the critical advantages of a spatial perspective is the attention
it focuses on how phenomena are related to one another in particular
places.
Students should thus learn not just to recognize and interpret
patterns, but to assess the nature and significance of the
relationships among phenomena that occur in the same place
and to understand how tastes and values, political regulations,
and economic constraints work together to create particular
types of cultural landscapes.
-The college board website

DESCRIBE HOW THE DISCIPLINE OF GEOGRAPHY

HAS EVOLVED

EXPLAIN HOW GEOGRAPHERS CLASSIFY EACH OF THE

FOLLOWING AND PROVIDE AND EXAMPLE OF EACH:

Distribution: The arrangement of something across Earths

surface

Region: An area distinguished by a unique combination of

trends or features

Location: the position that something occupies on Earths

surface

DISTRIBUTION: THE ARRANGEMENT OF SOMETHING

ACROSS EARTHS SURFACE

Density: the frequency with which something occurs in

space
High Density
The number of a feature
The land area
High Density Low Density

Low Density

Concentration: the extent of a features spread over space

Close together=Clustered
Far apart=Dispersed
(The best way to compare two concentrations is if they have the
same number of objects and the same amount of land)

Pattern: the geometric arrangement of objects in space

Linear Distribution
Square or Rectangular Pattern
Grid Pattern-intersections at right angles

REGION: AN AREA DISTINGUISHED BY A UNIQUE

COMBINATION OF TRENDS OR FEATURES
Applied on two scales:

Neighborhoods that share important features

Localities within a country

A region gets unique trends or features from its Cultural

Landscape
Cultural Landscape Approach (regional studies)
Three Types:
1.
Formal Region/Uniform Region: an area within which everyone
shares in common one or more distinctive characteristic
(language, planting a certain crop, climate) [Can be
predominant rather than universal]
2.
Functional Region/Nodal Region: an area organized around a
specific point, the trend or feature gets less important the
farther you get from the focal point (reception of a TV station)
3.
Vernacular Region/Perceptual region: An area people believe
exists as part of their cultural identity (mental map) [Ex. People
think of the Southern US to be very different from the rest of the
US-voodoo and witches etc]

LOCATION: THE POSITION OF ANYTHING ON EARTHS SURFACE

1.

2.

3.

Place Name-most straight forward way to describe a location,

toponym, Names come frompeople, religion, origin of settlers,
features of the physical environment, (in modern day racially offensive
names are being replaced)
Site-the physical character of a place, climate, water sources,
topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, elevation, essential in selection
the location for a settlement, humans can modify the characteristics of
a site (landfill projects, man-made islands)
Situation-the location of a place relative to other places, valuable
forfinding an unfamiliar place by comparing its location to a place
we know, understanding its importance because of its accessibility to
other places

Name: Washington DC
was named after
President George
Washington

Site: Bays are being filled

in all around the world to
create more land

Situation: this hotel is

expensive/important
because its right next to
Disneyland

IDENTIFY TYPES OF SCALE AND PROJECTIONS USED

IN MAP MAKING

Projections:
Mercator Projection

Scale: The relationship of a features size

on a map to its actual size on earth (effects
the level of detail and the amount of area
covered on a map)
Ratio/Fraction: the numerical ratio
Goode Homolosine Projection
between distances on the map and
earths surface

Written Scale: describes the

relationship between map and Earth
distances in words

Example-1:2400 or 1/2400 means 1 unit on

the map is equal to 2400 units on Earths
surface (unit can be feet, inches, etc) First
number is map scale second is earth scale.

Example-1 inch equals 1 mile First number

is map scale second is earth scale.

Graphic Scale: consists of a bar line

marked to show distance on Earths
surface

Robinson Projection

Example-determine with a ruler the distance

on the map in inches or centimeters, hold
the ruler against the bar line and read the
number of the bar line opposite the map
distance in the ruler, the number on the bar
is equal to distance on Earths surface

Projections can distort

o shape of an area
o distance between two points
o direction from one place to another
o relative size of different areas

IDENTIFY ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF

DIFFERENT PROJECTIONS
Type of Projection:

Advantages:

Disadvantages:

Mercator Projection

Shape distorted very little, Size of things towards the

consistent direction,
poles is largely distortedrectangular map
high latitude places like
much larger then they
really are

Robinson Projection

Good for displaying

information across
oceans

By making ocean size

accurate, land masses
are much smaller

Equal Area Projection or

Goode Homolosine
Projection

Relative size of the land

masses are the same as
in reality.

Countries towards the

north and south poles get
distorted

LIST DIFFERENT TYPES (MODELS) OF DIFFUSION AND PROVIDE

EXAMPLES/ILLUSTRATIONS OF EACH IN THE REAL WORLD

Diffusion= the process by which a characteristic spreads across space from

one place to another over time
Hearth= a place from which an innovation originates
Relocation Diffusion= The spread of an idea through physical movement of
people from one place to another
Expansion Diffusion= The spread of a feature from one place to another in
an additive process
Types of Expansion Diffusion:
Examples:
Hierarchical Diffusion: the spread
of an idea through persons or
nodes of authority or power
Contagious Diffusion: the rapid,
widespread diffusion of a
characteristic throughout the
population
Stimulus Diffusion: the spread of
an underlying principle even
though a characteristic itself fails
to diffuse

Hindus dont eat beef (hamburgers) so you

would think Fast Food wouldnt be popular
but in India they want Fast Food places to
seem developed, even though the idea of
Fast Food burgers doesnt work the idea of
Fast Food places does!

DEFINE AND DISCUSS CULTURAL ECOLOGY,

POSSIBLISM, AND ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM

Definition:

Discussion:

Cultural
Ecology

Possiblism

Environmental
Determinism

A geographic
approach
that
emphasizes
humanenvironment
relationships

The theory that the

physical environment
may set limits on human
actions, but people have
the ability to adjust to the
physical environment
and choose a course of
action from many
alternatives

A nineteenth and early

twentieth century approach
to the study of geography
which argued that the
general laws sought by
human geographers could
be found in the physical
sciences. Geography was
therefore the study of how
the physical environment
caused human activities.

EXPLAIN THE USE AND ROLE OF TECHNOLOGIES SUCH AS GIS, GPS,

AND REMOTE SENSING IN MODERN GEOGRAPHY
GIS-Geographic
Information System

GPS-Global Positioning
System

Remote Sensing

A computer system that stores,

organizes, analyzes, and
displays geographic data
Can be used to produce maps
that are more accurate and
attractive than those drawn by
hand
A map is created by a computer
retrieving a number of stored
items to create an imagelayering the items to equal a
map

1.

2.
3.

A system that determines the precise

position of something on Earth
through a series of satellites, tracking
stations, and receivers
Satellites placed in predetermined
orbits by the U.S. military
Tracking stations to monitor and
control the satellites
A receiver that can locate at least 4
satellites, figure out the distance from
each, and from this determine its own
location
Mostly used for navigation of ships,
planes, etc.
Can help monitor delivery trucks, or to
know where to send an emergency
vehicle
GPS allows private individuals to help
make digital maps more accurate

The acquisition of data from Earths

surface from satellite orbiting the planet
or from other long-distance methods
Remote sensing satellites scan the
earths surface (like a TV camera
scans on image in thin lines so you can
see it on the TV screen)
The satellite records a tiny element or
pixel
Scanners detect the radiation in that
pixel
A map is created by many rows of
scanned pixels
The smallest feature on earth can be
detected through remote sensing
Used to follow the changing distribution
in many features such as agriculture,
drought, and sprawl

EXPLAIN THE 4 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE CLIMATE AND BE ABLE TO

IDENTIFY CLIMATE PATTERNS ON THE EARTH

DEFINE AND EXPLAIN CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PLACES USING

TERMS SUCH AS SPACE-TIME COMPRESSION AND DISTANCE
DECAY

DEFINE AND EXPLAIN THE GLOBALIZATION OF

ECONOMICS AND CULTURES