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HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
study of the spatial organization of human activity & of
peoples relationship with the environment.
It is about recognizing & understanding interdependence
among places & regions without losing sight of the
individuality & uniqueness of specific places
Knowledge on human geography can:
help us understand how places affect & are affected by
one another;
provides better understanding of the place we live in;
and
help us locate & map events that happen
1. LOCATION Precise point on the earths surface,can
either be:
a. Nominal actual name of the place
b. Relative uses a reference point; fixed in terms of site
(the physical attributes of the location such as terrain,
soil, & water sources) or situation (the location of a place
relative to other places and human activities).
c. Absolute uses the grid coordinate system (latitude
and longitude)
d. Cognitive refers to the mental perception of a given
place; subjective. The cognitive image or our mental
maps is also the psychological representations of
locations which are created from peoples individual ideas
and impressions of these locations.
Europeans started navigation and came up with the idea of
latitude and longitude.
PARALLEL: imaginary horizontal lines on the earths
global system.
MERIDIAN: imaginary lines running from the poles.
EQUATOR: 0 latitude neither east nor west
LATITUDE: the angular distance of a point on the
earths surface, measured in degrees, minutes and
second, north or south of the equator. Describes how
far north or south of the equator a place is. A circle
joining places of the same latitude is called parallel of
latitude. (1 110 km )
LONGITUDE: the angular distance of a point in the
earths surface, measured east or west from the Prime
Meridian. Measures position east or west of a half circle
drawn from the North to the South Pole, and passing
through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, London,
England. Lines joining places of the same longitudes
are called meridians of longitude.
The position of the Prime Meridian was chosen by an
international conference in 1884.
DATELINE is 15 (30/24hrs). Topographic distortion &
political influences determines the timeline in a
particular place. The reference point used is the
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Topographic distortion & political influences determines
the timeline in a particular place.
Other important concepts: GPS, Champlains astrolabe,
Dava Sobel, Cognitive Image
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REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
Core of Geography in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries
Evaluates the differences among places, based on
recognizing the uniqueness of some places and features
that several places may have in common.
It provides an informed approach to assessing the roles
of global processes and their impacts on people in
different places.
11. REALMS Largest unit into which the inhabited world
can be divided.
Criteria include physical and human/social yardsticks.
(e.g. South America).
COMMON PARADIGMS
1. Environmental Determinism simple model of naturesociety relation where nature or the environment shapes or
limits the society. The physical environment controls human
actions, molds human behavior and conditions cultural
development.
2. Cultural Possibilism as opposed to determinism, man
is the active component while nature is passive. It holds
that man can manipulate nature for his advantages.
TYPES
1. FORMAL Essential uniformity / homogeneity /
sameness, determined by combination of physical & human
geographic features. It is one that is uniform in terms of a
specific criteria. Example, world regions based on climate;
Businesses & governmental bodies use formal regional
division to define their marketing & administrative areas.
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