Unit 1: Thinking Geographically

Physical geography

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

ex: the movement of glaciers in different areas, or how a process like erosion changes a riverbed

Human geography

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

ex: how people organize themselves socially, politically, and economically and what impact they have on the social environment.

Spatial perspective

refers to where something occurs

(where and why things are located there)

• geographers studying how people live on Earth, how they organize themselves, and why the events of human societies occur where they do

ecological perspective

refers to the relationships between living things and their environments

• looking at an issue involves studying the interactive and interdependent relationships amount living things, ecosystems, and human societies

absolute location

exact location of an object

• expressed in coordinates of longitude and latitude

relative location

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

ex: Budapest is 134 miles southeast of Vienna, Austria

or

the city straddles the Danube River in the middle of the Carpathian Basin in north central Hungary

sense of place

referring to the emotions attached to an area based on their personal experiences

site

a place's absolute location, physical characteristics (landforms, climate, and resources)

situation

a place’s location in relation to other places or its surrounding features

• connection to other places ex: transportation routes (roads, rail lines, and waterways), political associations, and economic and cultural ties

environmental determinism (8th, 19th, much of 20th century)

human behavior is largely controlled by the physical environment.

• a regions climate and soil fertility dictate how a society develops as it adapts to the environment

distance decay

the farther away one thing is from another, the less interaction the two things will have

• Waldo Tobler first law of geography states that the closer one thing is to another the more related they are

friction of distance

a concept that states that distance requires time, effort, and cost to overcome.

• applies to political, religious, and cultural movements

MODERN ADVANCEMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSPORTATION, IT HAS LESS IMPACT TODAY THAN IN THE PAST

Time-space compression

the processes causing relative distance between places to shrink

• MODERN TRANSPORTATION REDUCED TRAVEL TIMES

• THE INTERNET AND OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATION HAVE MADE IT EASIER TO COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE AND SEND MONEY AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH ONLINE BANKING

possibilism

argues that humans have more agency or ability to produce a result than environmental determinism suggests

• environment places some limitations on human activity, but societies have a range of options in deciding how to live within a physical environment

  ex: people who live in the desert divert rivers to irrigate land for agriculture and build dams and aqueducts for water

renewable resources

nature produces it faster than people consume it

ex: solar and wind energy

nonrewable resources

people consume it faster than nature produces it

ex: coal and other fossil fuels

scales of analysis

local, regional, national, or global

region

an area of Earth’s surface with certain characteristics that make it distinct from other areas

• people decide how they appear

formal regions

an area that has one or more shared trait, also referred to as a uniform region

• shared traits can be":

  • physical (landforms- mountain range or climate area like a desert)

  • cultural (languages or religion)

  • combination of traits, defined by data (measures of population, income, ethnicity, or precipitation)

  ex: a country is a formal political region (shared traits are government, services, laws, and taxes)

  ex: state or province within a country

  Africa is a formal region

functional region

an area organized by its function around a focal point (node), or the center of an interest or activity

node

focus of the region

ex: downtown of a city

suburbs

the residential areas surrounding a city

hinterlands

cities with ports or large commercial shipping facilities form functional regions with their surrounding areas called HINTERLANDS

perceptual region/vernacular region

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

defined by peoples perception of the area

ex: the midwest region of the US

• eastern europe

globalization

expansion of economic, cultural, and political processes

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

allowed companies in the US, CNDA, and MEXICO to sell goods and hire workers in any of the three countries

2018 drafted a similar pact called the USMCA

The European Union (EU)

to allow people and goods to easily pass from country to country

Wallersteins world system theory

catergorizes countries into three-tiered structures—core, semi-periphery, and periphery

States that the three types of countries form a power hierarchy, core at top, periphery at the bottom

qualitative