UNIT 1: Its Nature and Perspectives (PART 1)

built landscape

Represented by those features and patterns reflecting human occupation and

use of natural resources.

sequent occupance

The notion that successful societies leave their cultural imprints on a

place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.

cultural landscape

The artificial landscape; the visible human imprint on the land.

Density

The frequency with which something occurs in space.

Hearth Diffusion

A focused geographic area where important innovations are born and from

which they spread.

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of an innovation or other element of culture that occurs with

the bodily relocation (migration) of the individual or group responsible for the innovation.

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of innovations within an area in a snowballing process, so that

the total number of knowers or users becomes greater and the area of occurrence grows.

Hierarchical Diffusion

A type of expansion diffusion in which innovations spread from one

important person to another or from one urban center to another, temporarily bypassing other

persons or rural areas.

Contagious Diffusion

A type of expansion diffusion in which cultural innovation spreads by

person-to-person contact, moving wavelike through an area and population without regard to

social status.

Stimulus Diffusion

A type of expansion diffusion in which a specific trait fails to spread but the

underlying instead or concept is accepted.

Absolute Direction

A compass direction such as north or south.

Relative Direction

Directions such as left, right, forward, backward, up, and down based on

people's perception of places.

Dispersion

A type of settlement form in which people live relatively distant from each other

Absolute Distance

The distance that can be measured with a standard unit of length, such as

mile or kilometer.

Relative Distance

A measure of distance that includes the costs of overcoming the friction of

absolute distance separating two places.

Distribution

Arrangement of features in space; three main properties: density, concentration,

pattern.

Environmental Determinism

A 19th and early 20th century approach to the study of

geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.

Absolute Location

The exact position of an object or place, measured within the spatial

coordinates of a grid system.

Relative Location

The location of a place in relation to other places around it.

Site

The physical character of a place. Can include climate, topography, water sources,

elevation, vegetation, soil, and latitude.

Situation

The location of a place relative to other places.

Place Name

Name given to portion of Earth's surface, also known as a toponym.

Linear Pattern

A pattern that is along straight lines, like rivers, streets, on railroad tracks.

Centralized Pattern

Clustered or concentrated at a certain place.

Random Pattern

A pattern that has no regular distortion that can be seen.

Physical Attributes

In geography, natural features such as mountains and rivers.

Possibilism

The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.

Region

A group of like places or the functional union of places to form a spatial unit.

Scale

Generally, the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole, specifically the relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on the Earth's surface.

Size

The dimensions, proportions, amount, or extent of something.

Spatial

Relating to, occupying, or having the character of space.

Spatial Interaction

The movement of people, goods and ideas within and across geographic

space.

Accessibility

The relative ease with which a destination may be reached from some other place.

Connectivity

The degree of economic, social, cultural, or political connection between two

places.

Network

Chains of communication that connects places.

Distance Decay

The decrease in interaction between two phenomena, places, or people as the

distance between them increases.

Friction of Distance

A measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between

two places.

Time-Space Compression

The reduction in the time it takes for something to reach another

place.