Introduction to Geography and Map Projections

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering geographic concepts, scales, data types, and map projections based on the lecture notes.

Who was the head librarian at Alexandria during the third century BC who accurately computed the earth's circumference and coined the phrase "Geography"?

Eratosthenes

According to Carl Sauer from UC-Berkley, what is defined as the results of interaction between humans and environment where no landscape has escaped alteration?

cultural landscape

What is the term for the distance that can be measured with a standard unit of length?

Absolute Distance

What is the term for the relative ease with which a destination may be reached from some other place?

Accessibility

What term refers to the way a map communicates the ratio of its size to the size of what it represents?

Cartographic scale

What is an official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details of individuals?

Census

What term describes objects that are grouped together but not coherent?

Clustered

What is the actual or potential relationship between two places, usually referring to economic interactions?

Complementarity

What is the degree of economic, social, cultural or political connection between two places?

Connectivity

What standard grid, composed of lines of latitude and longitude, is used to determine the absolute location of any object on the earth's surface?

Coordinate system

What term is used when a phenomenon is relatively far apart?

Dispersed

What is the height above a given level, especially sea level?

Elevation

What refers to the act of physically visiting a location, place, or region and recording, firsthand, information there?

Field Observation

What is the measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between two places?

Friction of Distance

What is the actual shape of the earth, which is rough and oblate, and where the circumference is longer around the equator than along the meridians?

Geoid

What set of digital maps covers the whole globe to express the status of the global environment?

Global Scale

What is the idea that if a place has a demand for a good and two places have a supply of equal price, the closer supplier will block the third from sharing its supply?

Intervening Opportunities

What is the process of describing and interpreting the landscape ecology of an area?

Landscape Analysis

What type of map has a relatively small ratio between map units and ground units, higher resolution, and covers smaller regions?

Large-Scale

Which spatial region is equivalent to that of a community?

Local Scale

What term refers to various means of communication such as television, radio, and the newspaper?

Media Reports

Which spatial region is equivalent to that of a country?

National Scale

What is the physical landscape or environment that has not been affected by human activities?

Natural Landscape

What are materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain?

Natural Resources

What is the use of sophisticated software to create dynamic, three-dimensional, or interactive computer maps?

Online Visualization

What are the acts of examining photographic images for the purpose of identifying objects and judging their significance?

Photographic Interpretation

What document specifies the rules, guidelines and regulations that an organization or country requires employees or citizens to follow?

Policy Document

What type of data is associated with a humanistic approach and collected through interviews, empirical observations, or interpretation of archives?

Qualitative Data

What type of data is in the form of counts or numbers where each data-set has a unique numerical value, usually collected for statistical analysis?

Quantitative Data

What scale refers to interaction occurring within a region in a regional setting?

Regional Scale

What measure of distance includes the costs of overcoming friction and describes the social, cultural, or economic connectivity between places?

Relative Distance

What are feelings evoked by people as a result of certain experiences and memories associated with a particular place?

Sense of place

What map scale ratio depicts large areas and has a quite small ratio of units on the map to units on the earth?

Small-scale

What intellectual framework looks at the locations of specific phenomena, why they are there, and how they relate to phenomena in other places?

Spatial Perspective

What is the concept of using earth's resources to provide for current needs without diminishing the ability to provide for future generations?

Sustainability

What term refers to the costs involved in moving goods from one place to another?

Transferability

Which thematic map transforms space such that the political unit with the greatest value for data is represented by the largest relative unit?

Cartograms

Which thematic map uses tones or colors to represent spatial data as average values per unit area?

Choropleth map

What is an image of a portion of the earth's surface that an individual creates in their mind based on knowledge and personal perceptions?

Cognitive map

What type of map projection features non-constant direction and longitude lines that converge at only one pole?

Conic projection

What is the misrepresentation of shape, area, distance, or direction on a map compared to true measurements on the earth's curved surface?

Distortion

Which thematic map shows precise locations of specific observations such as crimes, car accidents, or births?

Dot maps

What is a map line that connects points of equal or very similar values?

Isoline

What type of map displays individual preferences for certain places?

Preference map

Which thematic map uses the size of a symbol to indicate the relative magnitude of a statistical value for a geographic region?

Proportional / graduated symbol map

What type of map shows reference information useful for finding landmarks and navigating?

Reference Map

What type of map displays one or more variables, such as population or income level, within a particular area?

Thematic Map

In a GIS, what are the individual maps of specific features that are overlaid to understand spatial relationships?

Thematic Layers

Which maps use Isolines to represent constant elevations, meaning walking along the path of an isoline keeps you at the same height?

Topographic map

Which pseudo cylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection is normally presented with multiple interruptions?

Good-Homolosine

Which true conformal cylindrical map projection is useful for navigation because it maintains accurate direction but distorts landmasses at the poles?

Mercator Projection

Which world map projection shows areas in correct proportion at the expense of distorted shape, using a rectangular decimal grid?

Peters Projection

Which projection attempts to balance several projection errors and minimizes errors in area, shape, distance, and direction?

Robinson Projection