Geography Lecture Notes Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering the themes of geography, types of map projections, and geographic tools.

Geography

A word derived from two roots meaning "earth's" and "written description".

Human-environment interaction

A theme of geography describing how people adapt to and modify their surroundings.

Movement

The theme of geography concerning the shift of people, goods, ideas, and diseases.

Region

An area defined by formal boundaries or functions.

Location

A theme of geography categorized as either absolute or relative.

Relative location

Describing where a place is by comparing it to other places.

Absolute location

The specific point where something is located on the earth's surface.

Place

A theme of geography defined by physical characteristics (mountains, rivers, soils, plants, and animals) and human characteristics (roads, buildings, agriculture, and industry).

Globe

An object that shows information about the earth's surface with perfect accuracy.

Prime Meridian

A line designated as $0^{\circ}$ that passes through Greenwich, England.

Lines of Longitude

Lines that run north to south and measure distance east to west.

Lines of Latitude

Lines that run east to west and measure distance north to south, with the equator at the center.

Maps

Flat representations on paper that show much greater detail than globes.

Mental maps

A person's perception of the world, or part of the world, based on their available knowledge.

Gores

A set of $12$ paper strips used to cover a typical globe.

Goode's Projection

An interrupted projection that has several popular variations.

Robinson's Projection

A projection whose greatest advantage is that it minimizes all four types of distortions.

Azimuthal Projection

A planar projection that uses a flat plane instead of a cylinder.

Cylindrical Projection

The projection style used by most world maps.

Mercator projection

A specific projection in which all lines look straight.