(APHG) Unit 1: Geography: Its Nature and Perspective

Geography

The description of the Earth's surface and the people and processes that shape those landscapes.

Environmental determinism

A philosophy of geography that stated that human behaviors are a direct result of the surrounding environment. While discredited for decades due to its use as a justification for European imperialism, it has undergone a recent revival in the form of neo-environmental determinism. This variation emphasizes how natural resources and ecology affect the development, expansion, and potential collapse of societies.

Possibilist

An approach to geography favored by most contemporary geographers. It suggests that humans are not a product of their environment, but rather that they possess the skills necessary to change their environment to satisfy human needs. People can determine their own outcomes without regard to location.

Scale

The relationship of the size of the map to the amount of area it represents on the planet. In other words, scale is the abstract dimension into which one renders the real world.

Equal-area projection

Maps that try to distribute distortion equally throughout the map. these maps distort shapes.

Conformal maps

Maps that distort area but keep shapes intact.

Cylindrical maps

Maps that distort shapes but show true direction (e.g., a Mercator map).

Global positioning systems (GPS)

A way for geographers to obtain new information, GPS technology is found in cars and cellphones. it uses the Earth's latitude and longitude coordinates to determine an exact location. It is owned by the U.S. government. GLONASS is the Russian competitor and counterpart to GPS.

Geographic information systems (GIS)

A way for geographers to obtain new information, GIS layers geographic information into a new map, showing specific types of geographic data. Watersheds, population density, highways, and agricultural data are geographic features that can be used as layers of data.

Satellite imagery

Images of the Earth taken from artificial satellites orbiting the planet. Important for GIS and remote sensing.

Remote sensing

Studying an object or location without making physical contact with it. For example, satellites have mapped the ocean floor by studying gravity waves.

Planar maps

Maps that show true direction and examine the Earth from one point, usually from a pole or a polar direction (e.g., any azimuthal map).

Conic maps

Maps that put a cone over the Earth and keep distance intact but lose directional qualities.

Oval maps

Maps that combine the cylindrical and conic projections (e.g., the Mollweide projection).

Thematic maps

Used to determine some type of geographic phenomenon, thematic maps can be represented in various ways: area class maps, area symbol maps, cartograms, choropleth maps, digital images, dot maps, flow-line maps, isoline maps, point symbol maps, and proportional symbol maps.

Isoline maps

An abstract map which outlines and connects points of identical value. An example is the weather map, which shows temperature or rainfall as overlapping colored blobs.

Flow-line maps

Maps that are good for determining movement, such as migration trends.

Choropleth maps

Maps that put data into a spatial format and are useful for determining demographic data by assigning colors or patterns to areas.

Cartograms

Maps that assign space by the size of some datum. For example, world population by country is often illustrated in a cartogram, with countries with larger populations appearing larger on the map.

Toponym

A place name, often based on similar features within a certain area.

Human geography

The study of human characteristics on the landscape, including population, agriculture, urbanization, and culture.

Built landscape

Produced by the physical material culture, it is the sum of tangible human creations on the landscape.

Sequent occupance

The idea that each civilization leaves an influence on the cultural landscape of place, affecting the civilizations that come after them.

Physical geography

The study of the physical features of the Earth and the attempt to define how they work.

Place

The description of what we see and of how we see and experience a certain aspect of the Earth's surface.

Region

A concept used to link different places together based on any parameter the geographer chooses.

Formal regions

Regions where anything and everything inside has the same characteristic or phenomena.

Functional regions

Regions that can be defined around a certain point or node. functional regions are most intense around the center but lose their characteristics as the distance from the focal point increases. See distance decay.

Distance decay

The lessening of a phenomenon as the distance from the hearth increases.

Friction of distance

Longer distances require increasing amounts of energy or money to traverse, meaning that people will feel metaphorical friction (resistance) to going someplace far away.

Perceptual/vernacular region

A region that exists primarily in the individual's perception or feelings (e.g., the concept of "the South" differs depending on where someone lives in the United States).

Relative location

A location that is based on, or refers to, another feature on the Earth's surface.

Absolute location

Location based on latitude and longitude coordinates.

Site

The internal characteristics of a place based on its physical features. Situation: The relationship that a particular location has with the locations around it.

Mental map

A map that contains what a person believes to exist. most people have mental maps, and they prove to be a useful tool in communication.

Latitudes (parallels)

Parallel lines that run east/west on the surface of the Earth. the highest degree of latitude is 90 degrees.

Equator

The latitude line that runs in the middle of the Earth. It is at 0 degrees latitude. Anything to the north of the equator is in the northern hemisphere, and anything to the south of the equator is in the southern hemisphere.

Longitudes (meridians)

Parallel lines that run north/south on the surface of the Earth.

Prime meridian

The 0 degree longitude line, which runs through Greenwich, in southeast London, England. It divides the eastern hemisphere and the western hemisphere.

Time zone

Based largely on the 15-degree longitude principle, although the exact location of the line may vary to take into account other factors, such as political boundaries and domestic political policy.

International Date Line

An imaginary boundary between one day and the next. It was created alongside the international system of time zones. The farthest that one can go on the longitude scale is 180 degrees, and that longitude roughly represents the International Date Line. It zigzags its way through the Pacific Ocean, owing to the location of countries there.

Human-environment interaction

How people modify or alter the environment to fit individual or societal needs.

Five toos

The types of areas where humans cannot live: too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, and too hilly.

Spatial interaction or movement

Concerned with how linked a place is to the outside world, this theme of geography deals mainly with area, because how well an area is connected to the world determines its importance.

Time-space compression

The increasing interconnectedness that human civilization enjoys despite physical distance being fixed.

Diffusion

The spread or movement of a principle or idea.

Hearth

The place where a given characteristic began is known as a hearth, and diffusion is the process by which it is spread.

Relocation diffusion

The spreading of a custom when people move. language tends to be spread through relocation diffusion.

Expansion diffusion

The term used to describe the spread of a characteristic from a central node through various means. There are three different types of expansion diffusion: hierarchical, contagious, and stimulus diffusion.

Hierarchical diffusion

The notion that a phenomenon spreads as a result of the social elite, such as political leaders, entertainment leaders, or famous athletes, spreading societal ideas or trends.

Contagious diffusion

The process of spreading a culture from one place to another through direct contact, similar to the way disease spreads.

Stimulus diffusion

The spread of a particular concept that is then used in another product.

Distribution

This term comes from the idea that everything on the Earth's surface must have a physical location. There are three different aspects of distribution: density, concentration, and pattern.

Density

A term used to describe how often an object occurs within a given area or space. most often used in terms of population density.

Population density

When calculating arithmetic population density, the number of people is divided by the amount of land to arrive at a number of people per square mile/ kilometer. Population density can be expressed in other ways as well, such as with physiological density.

Physiological density

Refers to the total number of people divided by the arable (farmable) land. a more accurate measure of population density than arithmetic density.

Arithmetic density

Determined by dividing the population of a country by the total land area.

Concentration

The density of particular phenomena over an area. in terms of concentration, objects can either be clustered or agglomerated.

Clustered (agglomerated)

In the area of concentration, objects that are close together are considered clustered (or agglomerated).

Dispersed (scattered)

In the area of concentration, if the objects are spread out, they are considered dispersed (or scattered).

Pattern

May be anything from triangular to linear or even three-dimensional, as with high-rise buildings. Patterns are related to how objects are organized in their space. Geometric shapes are used to describe how the phenomena are laid out.

Linear

A pattern where the items are laid out on a singular line.

Centralized

A pattern where the items are clustered together.

Random distribution

The lack of a pattern on the landscape

Ecological fallacy

The assumption that the relationships at one scale also exist at other scales.

Rank-size rule

The principle that relates cities' relative population sizes to their rank within a country.