AP human Geography unit 1.1

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Maps

Tools that depict spatial patterns.

Spatial patterns

How and where different geographic features occur on the earth’s surface.

Absolute distance

Specific distance that can be measured in feet or miles

Relative distance

Measures social, cultural, or political differences or similarities between two locations.

Absolute direction

cardinal directions(north,south,east, and west)

Relative direction

Describes one location in reference to another.

Clustering and dispersal

Show how different phenomena are organized across an area.

Clustering

ex-buildings in new york

Dispersal

ex-farms in the midwest

Elevations

Measures the height of geographic features relative to sea level.

Map scale

Tells you how the distance on the map relates to distance in the real world.

Direction

Represented on map by a compass rose.

Compass Rose

Indicates the cardinal directions:north,south,east, and west.Can sometimes give intermediate directions.

Scales

Tells how much of the world we’re seeing on the map(not distance like map scale)

Reference maps

Display specific geographic locations.

Thematic maps

Specialize in displaying geographic information.

Chloropleth map

Visualizes data from a specific geographic region in different colors.

Cartogram

Distorts the size of geographic shapes to display differences in data.

Graduated symbol

Also known as a “proportional map”

Dot distribution

Uses dots to visualize the location of certain data points.

Isoline map

Use lines to depict changes in data.

Mercator projection

A map whose latitude and longitude lines meet at right angles(square), a really good map for determining direction, distortion increases further from the equator.

Peters Projection

Depicts continents according to the true size of their landmass, the shapes are inaccurate though.

Goode Homosoline projection

Accurately represents the shapes of the land masses but has to break up the oceans to do so.

Polar projection

Views the world from the north or south pole, directions are true and the land shapes are accurate near the middle but distort farther from the center.

Robinson projection

Distributes all kinds of distortion to all parts of the map(compromise between mercator and peters)