Human Chapter 1

1.1: Maps

Reference Maps

• Reference: designed for people to refer to for general information about places

  • Political maps: show and label human-created boundaries and designations, such as countries, states, cities, and capitals

  • Physical maps: show and label natual features, such as mountains, rivers, and deserts

  • Road maps: show and label highways, streets, and alleys

  • Plat maps: show and label property lines and details of land ownership

Thematic Maps

• Thematic maps: how spatial aspects of information or a phenomenon

• Choropleth maps: use various colors, shades of one color, or patterns to show the location and distribution of spatial data

  • often show rates or other quantitative data

• Dot distribution maps: show the specific location and distribution of something across a map

  • each dot represents a specified quantity

  • any kind of symbol can be used

• Graduated symbol maps: use symbols of different sizes to indicate different amounts of something

  • larger sizes indicate more of something and smaller sizes indicate less

• Isoline maps: use lines that connect points of equal value to depict variations of data across space

  • also called isometric maps

  • close lines depict rapid change

  

  • Topographic maps: points of equal elevation are connected

• Cartogram maps: sizes of areas are relative to some statistic

Scale

• Scale: the ratio between the size of things on the real world and their size on the map

  • Cartographic scale: refers to the way the map communicates the ratio of its size to the size of what it represents

    • 1 in= 10 miles

    • 1:200,000 means one unit on the map is equal to 200,000 of that same unit in reality

  • Small scale maps: show a larger area with less detail (Ex: US Map)

  • Large scale maps: show a smaller area with more detail (Ex: Philadelphia map)

Types of Spatial Patterns Represented on a Map

Location

• Absolute location: the precise spot where something is according to a system

  • Lines of latitude and longitude

  • Latitude: distance north or south of the equator

  • Longitude: distance east or west of the prime meridian

  • Prime Meridian: Imaginary line that runs from pole to pole through Greenwhich, England

• Relative Location: a description of where something is in relation to other things

  • Connectivity: how well two locations are tied together by roads or other links

  • Accessibility: how quickly and easily people in one location can interact with people in another location

• Direction: used in order to describe where things are in relation to eachother

  • Cardinal directions: north, south, east, west

  • Intermediate directions: southeast, southwest, northeast, northwest

• Distance: a measurement of how far or how near things are to eachother

  • Absolute distance: measured in terms of feet, miles, meters, or kilometers

  • Relative distance: indicates the degree of nearness based on time or money

    • is often dependent on mode of travel

• Elevation: distance of features above sea level

  • measured in feet or meters

  • usually shown on isoline maps

• Pattern Distribution: the way a phenomenon is spread out over an area

  • Patterns: general arrangement of things

  • Clustered or agglomerated: arranged in a group or concentrated area such as restaurants in a food court

  • Linear: arranged in a straight line, such as towns along a railroad line

  • Dispersed: spread out over a large area, such as large malls in a city

  • Circular: equally spaced from a central point, such as the distribution of homes of people who shop at a particular store

  • Geometric: in regular arrangement, such as the squares or blocks formed by roads in the midwest

  • Random: appear to have no order to their position, such as the distribution of pet owners in a city

Projections

• All maps have some distortion

• Must decide whether to preserve area, shape, distance, or direction

Types of Projections

Projection	Purpose	Strength	Distortion	Image
Mercator	Navigation	Direction Lines of latitude and longitude meet at right angles	Distance between lines of longitude appears constant Land masses near the poles appear large
Peters	Spatial Distributions related to area	Size	Shapes are innacurate, especially near the poles
Conic	General use in midlatitude countries	Lines of longitude converge Lines of latitude are curved Size and shape are close to reality	Direction is not constant On a world map, longitude lines only converge at one point
Robinson	General use	No major distortion Oval shape appears more like a globe than does a rectangle	Area, shape, size, and direction are all slightly distorted

1.2: Geographic Data

Landscape Analysis

Observation and Interpretation

• Field observation: used to refer to the act of physically visiting a location, place, or region, and recording, firsthand, information there

• Spatial data: all the information that can be tied to specific locations

• Remote sensing: gathers information from satellites that orbit the earth or other craft above the atmosphere

• Aerial photography: professional images captured from planes within the atmosphere

Geospatial Data

• Quantitative or qualitative

• Fieldwork: observing and recording information on location, or in the field

  • Can come from census, interviews, or informal observations

Other Sources of Geospatial Data

• Government policy documents such as treaties or agreements, articles and videos, or photos

• Locational data on apps

1.3: The Power of Geographic Data

Using Geographic Data to Solve Problems

• Geovisualizations: allow people to zoom in or out to see data in ways that were previously impossible

• Maps are only as valuable as the data used to create them

Geospatial Technologies

Solutions In Action

• Community-based solution: increase the liklihood of success because they create buy-in from local residents and are more likely to be culturally accepted

1.4: Spatial Concepts

• Spatial approach: considers the arrangement of the phenomena being studied across the surface of the Earth

  • Focuses on location, distance, direction, flow, orientation, pattern, and interconnection

Major Geographic Spatial Concepts

Location

• Location: identifies where specific phenomena are located either on a grid system or relative to another location

  • Absolute and relative

Place

• Place: refers to the specific human and physical characteristics

• Region: group of places in the same area that share a common characteristic

• Site: the characteristics at the immediate location

• Situation: the location of a place relative to its surroundings and its connectivity to other places

• Sense of place: the perceived charcteristics of a place

• Toponyms: place names

  • Some provide insight into physical geography, history, or culture

Distance and Time

• Time-space compression: the shrinking of “time distance” or relative distance between locations because of improved methods of transportation and communication

Impact of Distance

• Spatial interaction: the contact, movement, and flow of things between locations

• Flow: the patterns and movement of ideas, people, products, or other phenomena

• Friction of distance: when things are further apart, they tend to be less connected

• Distance decay: the inverse relationship between distance and connection

Patterns and Distribution

• Patterns: the general arrangement of things being studied

• Distribution: the way a phenomenon is spread out or arranged over an area to describe patterns

• Spatial association: matching patterns of distribution

  • indicates two or more phenomena may be related or associated with another

Human-Environmental Interaction

Geographic Concepts

Natural Resources

• Natural resource: includes items that occur in the natural environment that people can use

• Renewable natural resources: theoretically unlimited and will not be depleted based on use by people

• Non-renewable natural resources: limited and can be exhausted by human resources

Sustainability

• Sustainability: an overarching theme of human geography and relates to using resources now in ways that allow their use in the future while minimizing negative impacts on the environment

Land Use

• Land use: the study of how land is utilized, modified, and organized by people

• Built enviroment: the physical artifacts that humans have created and that form part of the landscape, in their understanding of land use

• Cultural landscape: anything built by humans

Theories of Human-Environmental Interaction

• Cultural ecology: the study of how humans adapt to the environment

• Environmental determinism: the belief that landforms and climate are the most powerful forces shaping human behavior and societal development while ignoring the influence of culture

• Possibilism: ultural choices and technological advancements are the primary factors that shape how people adapt to their environment

1.6: Scales of Analysis

Different Scales of Analysis

Scale	Area Shown	Examples	Image
Global	The entire world	Global Earth at night image World population density map
World Regional	Multiple countries of the world	North America South Asia
National	One country	The United States Thailand
National Regional	A portion of a country or region(s) within a country	the Midwest eastern China
Local	A province, state, city, county, or neighborhood	Tennessee Moscow

Data Aggregation

• Aggregation: when geographers organize data into different scales

  • Ex: census tract, city, county, or country

Regional Analysis

Types of Regions

Formal/ Uniform Regions

• United by one or more traits

  • Political (Brazil), physical (the Sahara), cultural (southwestern Nigeria, where most speak Yoruba), economic (the Gold Coast of Africa, which exports gold)

Functional/ Nodal Regions

• Organized around a focal point

• Defined by a usually political, social, or economic activity

• United by networks of communication, transportation, etc.

Perceptual/ Vernacular Regions

• Defined by the informal sense of place that people ascribe to them

• Boundaries vary

  • Ex: The Middle East, Upstate New York