APHG: Unit 1

Physical geography

The study of natural processes and the distribution of features in the environment, such as landforms, plants, animals, soil, and climate change.

Human geography

The study of the processes that have shaped how humans understand, use, and alter Earth.

Spatial perspective

Geographic perspective that focuses on how people live on Earth, how they organize themselves, and why the events of human societies occur where they do.

Ecological perspective

The relationships between living things and their environments.

Location

The position that a point of object occupies on Earth.

Absolute location

The exact location of an object, usually expressed in coordinates of longitude and latitude.

Relative location

A description of where a place is in relation to other places or features.

Place

A location on Earth that is distinguished by its physical and human characteristics.

Mental maps

Internalized representation of portions of Earth’s surface.

Site

A place’s absolute location, as well as its physical characteristics, such as the landforms, climate, and resources.

Situation

Location of a place in relation to other places or its surrounding features.

Space

The area between two or more things.

Distribute

to arrange within a given space

Density

The number of things- people, animals, or objects- in a specific area

Pattern

They way in which things are arranged in a particular space.

Flow

Movement of people, goods, or information that has economic, social, political, or cultural effects on societies.

Environmental determinism

The idea that human behavior is strongly affected, controlled, or determined by the physical environment.

Distance decay

A principle stating that the farther away one thing is from another, the less interaction the two things will have.

Time-space compression

A key geographic principle that describes the ways in which modern transportation and communication technology have allowed humans to travel and communicate over long distances more quickly and easily.

Possibilism

Theory of human-environment interaction that states that humans have the ability to adapt the physical environment to their needs.

Sustainability

The use of Earth’s land and natural resources in ways that ensure they will continue to be available in the future.

Scale

The area of the world being studied.

Formal region/Uniform region

An area that has one or more shared physical or cultural traits, such as landforms or language.

Functional node/region

An area organized by its function around a focal point, or the center of an interest or activity.

Node

The focal point of a functional region.

Region

An area of Earth’s surface with certain characteristics that make it cohesive and yet distinct from other areas. Human constructs with subjective boundaries.

Suburbs

Less densely populated residential and commercial areas surrounding a city.

Perceptual region/Vernacular region

A type of region that reflects people’s feelings and attitudes about a place

Core

Classification of a country or region that has wealth, higher education levels, more advanced technologies, many resources, strong militaries, and powerful allies.

Globalization

The expansion of economic, cultural, and political processes on a worldwide scale. It has made a more connected and integrated world over the past half century,

Periphery

Classification of a country or region that has less wealth, lower education levels, and less sophisticated technologies and also tends to have an unstable government and poor healthcare systems.

Semi-periphery

Classification of a country or region that has qualities of both core and peripheral areas and is often in the process of industrializing.

Sustainable development

The use of Earth’s land and natural resources in way that ensure they will continue to be available in the future.

Theory

A system of ideas intended to explain certain phenomena.

World system theory

Theory describing the spatial and functional relationships between countries in the world economy; categorizes countries as part of a hierarchy consisting of the core, periphery, and semi-periphery.

Census

An official count of the number of people in a defined area, such as a state.

Geographic information systems (GIS)

A computer system that allows for the collection, organization, and display of geographic data for analysis.

Global positioning system (GPS)

A network of satellites that orbit Earth and transmit location data to receivers, enabling users to pinpoint their exact location.

Qualitative

Involving data that is descriptive of a research subject and is often based on people’s opinions.

Quantitative

Involving data that can be measured by numbers.

Remote sensing

Collecting or analyzing data from a location without making physical contact.

Topography

The representation of Earth’s surface to show natural and human-made features, especially their relative positions and elevations.

Absolute direction

The cardinal directions north, south, east, and west.

Absolute distance

Distance that can be measured using a standard unit of length.

Cartographer

A person who creates maps

Map scale

The relationship of the size of the map to the size of the area it represents on Earth’s surface.

Reference maps

A map that focuses on the location of places.

Relative direction

Direction based on a person’s perception, such as left, right, up, or down.

Relative distance

Distance determined in relation to other places or objects.

Thematic maps

Any map that focuses on one or more variables to show a relationship between geographic data.

Physical geography and human geography

What two major areas can geography be divided into?

Spatial patterns

Refers to the arrangement and placement of objects and event on Earth’s Surface.

The spatial perspective and the ecological perspective

From what perspective do geographers analyze complex issues and relationships?

Distance

the space between two places

Absolute location, relative location, place, space, flows, patterns, distribution, distance, time-space compression and distance decay

What are the ten spatial concepts for how humans interact with the environment?

To show how processes influence one another by revealing details that might not be apart at one scale.

Why do geographers study events at different scales?

Global, regional, national, subnational, and local.

What are the five scales of analysis?

Economic expansion and increasing globalization

What two factors make sustainable growth become more of a challenge?

Geo-Inquiry Process

A systematic way to investigate and understand the world through the patterns, processes, and interactions between human and natural systems.

Ask a question, collect information, organize and analyze geographic information (visualize), create stories, and share stories (act)

What are the five phases of the Geo-Inquiry Process?

Map

A geographer’s most important tool, depict data spatially, representing relationships among time, space, and scale.

Reference maps and thematic maps

What are the two main categories of maps?

You can’t show three dimensional Earth in two dimensions

Why are maps distorted?

Shape, area, direction, or distance.

What four things can maps distort?

Dot maps, choropleth maps, isoline maps, graduated symbols maps, and cartograms

What are five common maps?

Remote sensing methods, field observation, interviews, written accounts

What are the four main types of ways geographers gather data?