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AP Human Geography Notes

Unit One: Thinking Geographically

1. Introduction to Maps

  • Learning Target: Identify types of maps, the types of information presented in maps, and different kinds of spatial patterns and relationships portrayed in maps.
  • Reference Maps:
    • Designed for people to refer to for general information about places.
    • Two main types:
      • Political: Show governmental boundaries of countries, states, and counties, the location of major cities, and usually significant bodies of water.
      • Physical: Show the natural features of the earth, like mountains, rivers, and deserts.
  • Thematic Maps:
    • Used as a communications tool to tell us how human activities are distributed.
    • Types:
      • Cartogram: A map in which the size of areas is shown in proportion to the variable being measured.
      • Choropleth: A thematic map in which areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the measurement of the statistical variable being displayed on the map.
      • Dot Density: A map that uses dots to represent the frequency of a variable in a given area.
      • Isoline: A map with continuous lines joining points of the same value.
      • Proportional Symbol: A map where the size of the symbol varies in proportion to the intensity of the mapped variable.
  • Spatial Patterns Represented on a Map:
    • Absolute and relative distance and direction.
    • Clustering: Grouped/bunched together.
    • Dispersal: Appears to be distributed over a wide area.
    • Elevation: Using levels of how high/low something is located on the land.
  • Map Projections:
    • Distortion in shape, size, distance, and direction is inevitable when projecting a 3D surface onto a 2D plane.
    • Types:
      • Mercator Map:
        • Shape and directions of countries are fairly accurate.
        • Greatly distorted toward poles.
      • Robinson Map:
        • Everything is distorted in small amounts.
      • Goode:
        • Continent sizes are accurately portrayed.
        • Directions and distances aren’t accurate.
      • Gall Peters:
        • Shape of countries, especially near the equator, are distorted.

2. Geographic Data

  • Learning Target: Identify different methods of geographic data collection.
  • Geospatial Data: All information, including physical features and human activities, that can be shown on a map
  • Geographic Information System (GIS): A computer system for capturing, storing, checking, and displaying data related to positions on Earth's surface.
  • Geographic Positioning System (GPS): This system uses data from satellites to pinpoint a location on earth and help people find their way to a destination.
  • Remote Sensing: Refers to the process of taking pictures of the Earth's surface from satellites (or, earlier, airplanes) to provide a greater understanding of the Earth's geography over large distances.
  • Spatial Information: Can come from written accounts in the form of field observations, media reports, travel narratives, policy documents, personal interviews, landscape analysis, and photographic interpretation.

3. The Power of Geographic Data

  • Learning Target: Explain the geographical effects of decisions made using geographical information.
  • Geospatial Data: All information including physical features and human activities
  • Census Data: An official count of individuals in a population (in the USA, it happens every 10 years).

4. Spatial Concepts

  • Learning Target: Define major geographic concepts that illustrate spatial relationships.
  • Absolute Location: The precise spot where something is located.
  • Relative Location: Where something is in relation to other things.
  • Space: Extent of an area and can be in a relative and absolute sense.
  • Place: Refers to the specific human and physical characteristics of a location.
  • Distance Decay: A geographical term which describes the effect of distance on cultural or spatial interactions.
  • Time-Space Compression: Is the increasing sense of connectivity that seems to be bringing people closer together even though their distances are the same.
  • Pattern: The geometric or regular arrangement of something in an area.

5. Human-Environmental Interaction

  • Learning Target: Explain how major geographic concepts illustrate spatial relationships.
  • Sustainability: The goal of the human race reaching equilibrium with the environment; meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations.
  • Natural Resources: A physical material constituting part of Earth that people need and value.
  • Environmental Determinism: How the physical environment caused (determined) social development.
  • Possibilism: The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment.

6. Scales of Analysis

  • Learning Target: Define scales of analysis used by geographers and explain what scales of analysis reveal.
  • Scale: The relationship between the distance on the ground and the corresponding distance on a specific map; also, a concept describing how