More than just countries and capitals…

Geography - The study of where and how natural and human features and activities are distributed on the Earth’s surface, the relationships between them, how their distributions arose and how they change over time, and how those features and relationships affect human lives.

Important since thebeginning of civilization…

Lascaux, France –

17,000 YBPIs this the

world’s first hunting map?

Mesopotamia –6,200 BCEThe oldest

known map…and a tax map at

that!

Waldseemuller map - 1507

Why is this mapsignificant to Americans?

First time the “Americas” appear on a

map!

Draws from many fields;A holistic approach…

Utilizes a wide array of tools…• Maps• Remotely-sensed data

– Aerial photographs– Satellite imagery

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)• Field work (surveying, interviews, scientific

measurements)• Archival work• Charts, diagrams, tables• Models• Five senses• “Geographical Imagination”

Asks questions and addresses

issues in a unique way…

Geography’s Five Themes:

• Absolute location– Fixed location within a coordinate system (longitude

and latitude)– Fixed elevation (not altitude!) above sea level– Fixed depth below sea level– “Site” – the collective attributes of a specific locale

• Relative location– Position in relation to other places, features, or

phenomena– “Situation” - the relationship between a locale and its

surroundings

LOCATION

LOCATIONAbsolute

YOU ARE HERE(give or take a

few meters)

LOCATIONAbsolute

A simple GPS device, taken to thesummit of Mt. Everest, determined

that the peak is 29,035 feet high rather than 29,028 feet

The national borders of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab

Emirates that run through the the Rub al Khali or “Empty Quarter” were not clearly defined until GPS technology

arrived

Using satellites, GPSdevices can fix your location

to the nearest few inches

LOCATIONRelative

LOCATIONRelative

1 hr30 min

1 hr.

1 hr15 min

1 hr10 min Richmond

3 hrVirginiaBeach

2 hr30 min

Chapel Hill

Farmville: convenient to any number of

interesting places!

YOU ARE HERE(give or take afew kilometers)

LOCATIONRelative

LOCATIONSite

Istanbul

Although in a severe earthquake zone, the solid bedrock that makes up the land this city sits on has reduced the

damage to historical monuments there. What city is this?

LOCATIONSituation

CHRISTENDOM

ISLAM

Bosporus

Dardanelles

COMMUNISTBLOC

“WEST”

Istanbul is a crossroads in more ways than one!

North Anatolian Fault

• Transformation of natural landscapes into cultural landscapes by human action

• Combined attributes of nature and culture differentiate places and make each place unique

• Places shape human activity• As products of culture, places have meaning• As products of culture, places change over time• Places create a local dynamic that runs counter

to globalization

PLACEPLACE

Istanbul

Hippodrome(Roman)

HagiaSophia

(Byzantine/Turkish

Blue Mosque(Turkish)

TopkapiPalace

(Turkish)

PLACEPLACEThe rich past of Istanbul makesit the interesting

place that it is today

Where would a cantaloupe cost over $170 US…

PLACEPLACE

Tokyo

Where would you needtriple decker driving ranges…

And where would they needto ever-so-politely cramyou into a subway car?

PLACEPLACE

Mr. Tyson’sdairy farm

Mr. Tyson

Tyson’s Corner

Places change over time…

• Involves the flow and exchange of commodities, organisms, people and ideas between places

• Channels and pathways – networks – are necessary for movement

• Local issues can erect barriers and impede exchanges

• Distance creates friction, but technological change can ease the flow

• Movement – in the form of diffusion – creates interdependence

• Globalization stems from interdependence

MOVEMENT

MOVEMENT

Petroleum shipments from the Persian Gulf – carried in enormous supertankers – must navigate a series of sea lanes and chokepoints that concentrate their numbers

in a relatively small area of our vast oceans…

MOVEMENT

…which results in large amounts of oil being spilled in fragile coastal environments. Notice that the heaviest oil contamination is along sea lanes extending from the

Persian Gulf to Europe and Japan.

MOVEMENTSevere Acute Respiratory Syndrome

SARS cases worldwide:8,439 confirmed; 812 deaths

According to World Health Organization, July 4, 2002

SARS jumped from East Asia to North America via airline travel. This is why our government is so concerned about any disease that can be transmitted through the air, like Avian Flu (if it ever becomes a person-to-person disease).

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS

• Nature does not determine human actions and human activity cannot completely control nature

• Relationship is usually a cycle of interaction, change, and response between and among cultures and natural systems

• Humans assess environmental hazards through the lens of culture

• Culture and the level of technology determine what “resources” are

• Human impact on environments depends on numbers, culture, level of technology, and scale

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTINTERACTIONS

These three habitats are all solutions to the problem of surviving in the harsh conditions of the Sahara Desert in southern Tunisia. The top two use thick mud brick walls and white wash to insulate against and reflect some of the intense sun energy. The bottom solution involves digging underground or into hillsides, where the ground provides natural insulation.

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTINTERACTIONS

If you’re a film maker looking for an “other worldly” setting for your movie series, these habitats are so unfamiliar to Westerners that they might

very well seem as if they come from a galaxy far, far away!

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTINTERACTIONS

Imagine how much time, effort, and human energy went into creating these terraced hillside for rice

paddies!

Modern technology allows us to have a much greater impact on the earth. We have incredible power, but does the fact that we CAN do something mean we SHOULD do something? This is the controversial Three Gorges Dam project in China – one of the largest dam projects ever. It will open up the Yangtze River to much larger ships, provide flood control, and generate electricity.

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTINTERACTIONS

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTINTERACTIONS

It also will destroy one of the great natural wonders of the planet.

Wushan

Not to mention displacing literally millions of people.

2009 water level

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTINTERACTIONS

• Groupings of places according to pervasive similarities of chosen attributes across an area

• Humans define regions by choosing the traits – physical and cultural – that are grouped together

• Chosen traits are often part of a “regional landscape”• Groupings always involve generalizations or “spatial

stereotypes”• Regions, like places, shape human activity• Regions, like places, change over time

Formal region – an area in which the chosen trait is found uniformly throughout

Functional region – an area where the trait is strongest at the center (core) and weakens with distance

REGIONS

REGIONS

Regions based on branches within

Buddhism would be examples of formal

regions, because Mahayana Buddhists

and Theraveda Buddhists are spread uniformly throughout each respective area.

REGIONS

Sphere

Domain

From this map of Latter-Day Saints, it is possible to

create a map of the Mormon culture region. This is an example of a

functional region, because the concentration of

Mormons decreases from the core around Salt Lake City, to the domain which encompasses Utah, and finally to the sphere that

reaches into Nevada, Idaho, and New Mexico.

Core

Why Geography?• Geography enables us to understand our place in the

world, both figuratively and literally• Geography provides knowledge of Earth’s physical and

human systems and the interdependence of all things, which provides the basis for making informed, ethical choices that are in the best interests of our world

• Geography stimulates curiosity about our diverse planet, which overcomes ignorance, insularity, parochialism, and ethnocentrism

• Geography makes us better-informed citizens of the world, better able to make wiser decisions, and better equipped to solve issues on both a local and global level