aphg unit 1

Physical Geography

Physical Geography

Study of spatial characteristics of the physical environment like landforms, water, climate, and erosion.

Human Geography

Study of spatial characteristics of humans and human activities such as population, culture, politics, urban areas, and economics.

Thematic Maps

Maps showing spatial aspects of information or phenomena like chloropleth maps, dot distribution maps, and graduated symbol maps.

Absolute Location

Precise spot where something is located, often described using latitude and longitude.

Relative Location

Location in relation to other things, can change unlike absolute location.

Scale

Ratio between the size of things in reality and on the map, can be cartographic scale, words, ratio, or line scale.

Pattern Distribution

The way a phenomenon is spread over an area, with common patterns like linear, dispersed, circular, geometric, and random.

Projections

Different map projections like Mercator, Peters, conic, and Robinson, each with strengths and distortions.

Geovisualization

Turning geospatial data into interactive maps using technology for better understanding.

Human-Environmental Interaction

Relationship between humans and the natural world, involving natural resources, sustainability, land use, and cultural ecology.

Perceptual region (aka vernacular regions)

Informal sense of place that individuals attribute to a specific area, boundaries are subjective and vary depending on personal perceptions.

Large world regions

Includes seven continents and three cultural regions such as Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Russian Federation spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia.

Subregions

Smaller divisions within regions that share some characteristics with the larger region but differ in certain aspects, for example, Latin America as a region and Brazil as a subregion with similarities in Roman Catholics but differing in language with Portuguese.

Examples of subregions

Include the Caribbean, Western and Eastern Europe, North/East/West/South/Central Africa, the Middle East, and Central, South, East, and Southeast Asia.

Further division of subregions

Based on cultural, political, economic, and climatic factors to create more specific regions within the subregions.