Human Geography

The elements of culture 

Culture: knowledge attitudes and behaviors that are shared and passed by a group

Society: a group that shares a geographic region, sense of identity, and culture. 

Ethnic group: A specific group that shares language, culture, and Heritage

Ways cultures change over time:

  1. Innovation: improving an existing technology to meet a need

  2. Diffusion: when ideas spread

  3. Acculturation: Society changes to adopt a new innovation

Language

The role of language:

  1. Helps establish a cultural identity

  2. Helps people communicate with one another

  3. Can give a sense of unity

  4. Can also divide people

 dialect: changes in speech related to class, region, or culture

 language diffusion: when a language is spread over to a new area

Religion

 religion: belief in a supernatural power as regarded to Creator and maintainer of the universe

Major religions:

  1.  Judaism 

Concentrated in Israel, the Torah, Jerusalem holy city

  1. Christianity

Largest religion in world, Jesus Christ

  1. Islam

Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, Muhammed and Allah

  1. Hinduism

Oldest religion in world, concentrated in india, caste system

  1. Buddhism

Offshoot of Hinduism, rejects caste system, reincarnation, nirvana

Population Geography

Population geography: looks at birth and death rates distribution and density of population

Most heavily populated Zone: northern hemisphere

Most likely populated areas: polar, mountainous, desert regions

Urban rural mix: today over 1/2 of the world's population lives in urban areas this has developed as urbanization has occurred

reasons for migration:

  1.  environmental conditions

  2. Political reasons

  3. Good economic opportunities 

  4.  favorable climate

 population density: shows how heavily populated an area is

 carrying capacity: number of organisms a piece of land can support

Political Geography

Nation: group of people with common culture and sense of unity 

State: independent with control over specific territory

nation state: when nation and a state occupy the same territory

types of government

Democracy: citizens hold power (the US)

Dictatorship: individual or group hold complete power (north korea)

Communism: government control politics and economics in the name of the people (no real example as in practice it becomes a dictatorship disguised as a communist government)

Geographic characteristics of a Nation: size, shape,  relative location

natural boundaries: based on physical features

artificial boundaries: fixed lines generally follow longitude / latitude

Urban geography

Cities: large populations; Center of business and culture

suburbs: border cities, residential areas

metropolitan areas: when cities suburbs and other towns are all linked together

urbanization: dramatic rise in the number of cities

functions of cities: transport resources, serve as economic bases, transport goods, cultural/educational activities

megacities: Tokyo is the largest megacity in the world

Economic Geography

Economy: Productions and exchange of goods and services among groups of people

Economic system: Way people produce and exchange goods and services

Command economy: Government determines production

Market economy: consumers determine production

Natural resources: materials that have economic value

The role of all natural resources in an economy: good resources can make an economy successful and plentiful

Gross domestic product (GDP):  the total value of all goods and services produced within a country over a period of time

Infrastructure: support to keep a country going