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© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter 1: Basic Concepts The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 1: Basic Concepts
The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Defining Geography
• Word coined by Eratosthenes– Geo = Earth– Graphia = writing
• Geography thus means “earth writing”
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Contemporary Geography
• Geographers ask where and why– Location and distribution are important
terms
• Geographers are concerned with the tension between globalization and local diversity
• A division: physical geography and human geography
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Geography’s Vocabulary
• Place: unique location or position on Earth
• Region: combination of cultural/ physical features
• Scale: portion of the Earth compare to the whole
• Space: gap between two objects
• Connections: relationship btw people/objects
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Maps
• Two purposes– As reference tools
• To find locations, to find one’s way
– As communications tools• To show the distribution of human and physical
features
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Early Map Making
• Above: oldest map (Turkey) 7th century BC
• Below: Babylon (Iraq) 6th Century BC
Figure 1-2
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Maps: Scale
• Types of map scale– Ratio or fraction: numerical ration btw distances
on Earth’s surface 1:100– Written: written word form of ratio– Graphic: bar line to show distance
• Projection– Distortion: 4 types
• Shape: appears more elongated• Distance: distance, more or less • Relative size: altered size• Direction: distorted
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Figure 1-4
• Map Scale• 1) Washington State 1:10,000,000
(1 in = 10,000,000 inches or 158 miles)
• 2) Western Washington 1:1,000,000
• 3) Seattle 1:100,000• 4) Downtown Seattle 1:10,000
• As the area covered gets smaller, the maps get more detailed. 1 in represents smaller distances
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2 Types of Uninterrupted Maps
Robinson Map: shape distortion/ more ocean
Mercator Map: accurate shape/ distorted poles
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U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785
• Township and range system– Township = 6 sq. miles on each side
• North–south lines = principal meridians• East–west lines = base lines
– Township: T1 (distance north or south on a particular baseline
– Range: R1 (distance east or west on a particular meridian line
– Sections: each township is divided into 36 sections, each of which is 1 mile by 1 mile.
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Township and Range System• TL: north-south lines =
meridian lines (red lines). East-west lines = base lines (green lines).
• TR: West 6x6 miles/ East 6x6 (then divided into 36 1x1 mile subsections
• BL: scale of 1:24,000 or 1 inch = 24,000 inches (2,000 ft)
Figure 1-5
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Contemporary Tools
• Geographic Information Science (GIScience)– Global Positioning
Systems (GPS)– Remote sensing– Geographic
information systems (GIS) fig 1-7 Figure 1-7
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A Mash-up
Figure 1-8 https://developers.google.com/maps/
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END of Key Issue 1
How Do Geographers Describe Where Things Are?
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Key Issue 2
Why is Each Point on Earth Unique?
pg13 - 28
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Place: Unique Location of a Feature
• Location: 4 ways to identify– Place names
• Toponym:
– Site: the physical characteristics of a place
– Situation: location of a place relative to other places (helps locate a location)
– Mathematical location:
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Place: Mathematical Location
• Location of any place can be described precisely by a numbering system– Meridians (lines of
longitude) 74W• Prime meridian (Greenwich,
England)
– Parallels (lines of latitude) 41N
• The equator
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The Cultural Landscape
• A unique combination of social relationships and physical processes
• Each region = a distinctive landscape
• People/Culture = the most important agents of change to Earth’s surface
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Types of Regions
• Region can apply to any area larger than a point but smaller than the planet.
• Regional Studies: approach to geography that emphasizes the relationship among social and physical phenomena in a particular study.
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Types of Regions
• Formal (uniform) regions– Example: Florida or Red vs
Blue state.
• Functional (nodal or focal point) regions– Example: the circulation area
of a newspaper
• Vernacular (cultural) regions rather than a scientific model– Example: the American South
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Vernacular Region by Mental Mapping
• American South• Middle East• South America• Miami• Florida State
University• Hawaii• Weston
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Spatial Association
• Spatial distribution of a region can be constructed to encompass an area of widely varying scale.
• i.e. – cancer rates vary according to cultural, economic, and environmental factors
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Culture
• Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to care for”. Body of customary beliefs, material traits, and social forms that distinguish a group.
• Two aspects:– What people care about
• Beliefs, values, and customs• Three identifying factors of culture derive from: Language,
Religion, & Ethnicity.
– What people take care of • Earning a living; obtaining food, clothing, and shelter
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Cultural Ecology
• The geographic study of human–environment relationships
• Two perspectives:– Environmental determinism: – Possibilism
• Modern geographers generally reject environmental determinism in favor of possibilism because humans have the ability to adjust to their environment/ resources
• Determined by a group’s values
• Crop selection determine by environment
• Vegetarian vs Non-vegetarian
• Cremation versus burial
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Physical Processes determined by human activity/ 4 types
• Climate: Tropics, Dry, Warm, Cold, Polar
• Vegetation: Forest, Savanna, Grassland Desert
• Soil: 12,000 soil types
• Landforms: flat to mountainous
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Modifying the Environment
• Examples– The Netherlands
• Polders: creating land by drainage
– The Florida Everglades– Not so sensitive environmental
modification/ unintended environmental/social consequences
Figure 1-21
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Key Issue 2
Why Is Each Point on Earth Unique? Pg 13 - 28
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Scale
• Globalization– Economic globalization
• Transnational corporations
– Cultural globalization• A global culture?
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Space: Distribution of Features
• Distribution—three features– Density
• Arithmetic• Physiological• Agricultural
– Concentration– Pattern
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Space–Time Compression
Figure 1-29
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Spatial Interaction
• Transportation networks
• Electronic communications and the “death” of geography?
• Distance decay
Figure 1-30
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Diffusion
• The process by which a characteristic spreads across space and over time
• Hearth = source area for innovations
• Two types of diffusion– Relocation– Expansion
• Three types: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus
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Relocation Diffusion: Example
Figure 1-31
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The End.
Up next: Population
