Chapter One

Geographer’s Toolbox

Thinking Globally:

• “Geo“ - earth

• “Graphy“ - to write

• Geographers as “where“ things are and “why“ they are there

• Geography - The study of the distribution and interaction of physical and human features on the earth.

Geography:

• Physical Geography - focus on natural environments

• The earth’s natural phenomena, like soil, plants, climate, and topography

• This is what most think of when they think of Geography

• Hunam Geography - focus on people, processes locations of the earth’s human creations, and their interactions

Looking at the Earth:

• Continents

• County

• State/province/territory

• Islands

• Oceans

Maps and symbols:

• Scale

• Compass rose

• Title

• Key/Legend

• Color

The science of mapmaking:

• Cartographer - A person who makes maps

Maps:

• Maps - A two-dimensional or flat-scale model of the earth’s surface.

• Globe - A scale model of the earth

• Great circle route - the shortest distance between 2 points on Earth.

Types of maps:

• Thematic

• FLow-line

• Chloropleth

• Dot density

• Proportional

• Symbol thematic

• Reference

• Isoline thematic

• Cognitive or mental maps

Map projections:

• Projections are a scientific method of transferring locations on the earth’s surface to a flat map

• Four types of distortions can occur:

  • Shape of an area is distorted

  • Distance between two points can increase or decrease

  • Relative sizes of different areas may be altered

  • Direction from one place to another can be distorted

Classes of maps:

• Cylindrical (compromise) - shows true direction but loses distance

• Planar - shows true direction and examines the world from one point

• Conic - cone over the earth, loses direction but keeps distance in tact

• Oval - combination of cylindrical and conic

Contemporary Tools For Mapping

Geographic Information Systems (GIS):

• Info on a location is stored in layers

• Layers can be viewed individually or combined

  • Urban planning

  • Analysis of crime data

  • Effects of Pollution

Remote Sensing:

• Remote sensing satellites scan the earth

• Google Maps

  • Monitoring weather/environmental changes - Determines land cover/use

Global Positioning System:

• Accurately determines the precise position of something on earth

• Originally designed for aircraft and ships, now available for autos

  • Locating boarders

  • Navigation

  • Mapping lines or points

Five Themes of Geography:

• Five Themes:

  • Location - Absolute location (global grid) and relative location (in relation to places around it)

  • Human/environment interactions

  • Regions

  • Place

  • Movement

• Mathematical Location - described by latitude and longitude (absolute)

• Latitude and longitude

  • Meridians = longitude

  • Parallels = latitude

  • prime meridian (GMT -Greenwich mean time)

  • Equator

  • Hemispheres

Why is each point on Earth unique?

• Because no point ever repeats

Four ways to identify a place on Earth by its location:

1. Place name

2. Site - Physical character of a place (soil, topography, vegetarian, evaluation, etc.)

3. Situation - location of a place relative to another place (relative locations)

4. Movement - Interconnections between areas (travel, connections)

Regions:

• The organization of the earth’s surface into distinct areas that are viewed as different from other areas

Types of Regions:

• There are 3 types of regions:

  • Formal region

  • Functional region

  • Verrnacular or perceptual region

• Formal region:

  • Otherwise known as uniform or homogenous region.

  • Everyone within the region shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics

  • Creation of a state or provence is a formal region

  • The northamerican wheat belt is a formal region

  • Persons in the U.S.A. who votes republican or democratic

• Functional region:

  • Functional or nodal regions are organized around a core node or focal point

  • Geographers use functional regions to display information about economic areas

    • Newspaper circuation

    • TV station reception area

  • The core area has distinct characteristics that lessen in intensity as one travels to the periphery, or the region’s margines

  • Traveling west from Denver persons will venture to the periphery of Salt Lake City

• Perceptual or Vernacular Regions:

  • They are places that people believe to exist as part of their cultural identity.

  • They reflect feelings and images more than any objective reality.

Globalization:

• A force or a process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope

• Human activities are rarely confined to one location

• Multi-national corporation - located in more than one country. Can affect the culture or other nations

Distribution:

• Distribution - the arrangement of a feature in space

• Density - frequency in which something occurs

• Concentration - the extent of features spread over space

  • Are they clustered or dispersed?

  • Concentration is not the same as density. You can have the same density but not different concentrations. Think housing communities.

• Pattern - the geometric arrangement of objects in space

• Some are geometric - houses on a street are linear

• Some are random and irregular

Distribution:

• Spatial interaction:

  • Historically, settlers and explorers created interactions between locations

  • Today we have airplanes, computers, television, and the internet

  • Distance decay - the farther away one group is from another group, the less likely they are to interact with each other

    • Electronic communication has lessened this concept

Diffusion of Culture and Economy:

• North America, Western Europe, and Japan are the centers of Global culture and economy

Human-Environment Interaction:

• Connection and exchange between humans and the natural world

• Geographers focus on how humans influence the physical world study:

1. Sustainability

2. Pollution

3. Environmental Issue

• 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 social development

  • 19th and 20th centuries, geographers used this to argue that people in some climates were superior to those in other climates

• Opposite view is possibilism - a view that acknowledges limits on the effects of the natural environment. Different cultures have their own beliefs, goals, and technologies

Chapter One Key Terms:

1. Absolute location: mathematical location described by longitude and latitude

2. Accessibility: How quickly/easily people in one location can interact with people of another location

3. Arial Photogrophy: professional images captured from planes within the atmosphere

4. Built environment: buildings, roads, signs, fences, things made by humans, forms of the landscapes

5. Connectivity: how well locations are tied together by roads or other links

6. Cultural ecology: the study of how humans adapt to the environment

7. Density: the number of something in a specifically defined area

8. Distance Decay: the inverse relationship between distance and connection

9. Distance: measurement of how far one place is from another

10. Distribution: the way a phenomenon is spread out over an area

11. Environmental determinism: the belief that landforms and climate are the most powerful forces shaping human behavior and societal development

12. Equator: invisible line going across (horizontally) the earth, separating the southern and northern hemispheres

13. Field observation: used to refer to the act of physically visiting a location

14. Friction of distance: indicates that when things are farther apart, they tend to be less well-connected

15. Ghost Town: abandoned towns or settlements

16. Human geography: human-made environment.

17. Human-Environment Interaction: the connection and exchange between humans and the natural world

18. International date line: roughly follows prime meridian but makes deviations to accommodate international boundaries

19. Landscape analysis: the task of defining and describing landscapes

20. Latitude: Parallels (horizontal lines)

21. Longitude: Meridians (vertical lines)

22. Place: the specific human/physical characteristics of a location

23. Possibilism: a view that acknowledges limits on the natural environment and focuses on the role humans play

24. Prime Meridian: GMT - Greenwhich Mean Time (vertical equator separating the eastern and western hemispheres)

25. Proximity: indicates the degree of nearness

26. Region: the organization of the earth’s surface into distinct areas that are viewed as different from other areas

27. Relative Location: a description of where something is in relation to another place

28. Sense of place: related to the concept of a place

29. Site: the characteristics at the immediate location

30. Situation: refers to the location of a place relative to its surroundings and other places

31. Spatial Association: matching patterns of distribution

32. Spatial approach: considers the arrangement of phenomena being studied across eath’s surface

33. Spatial data: all info that can be tied to a specific location

34. Spatial interaction: refers to the contact, movement, and flow of things between locations

35. Time-space compression: the shrinking of “time distance“ between locations because of improving transportation

36. Toponyms: place names

37. Physical geography: the natural environment.

Chapter Two

Intro to Maps

Built environment:

• Human geographers refer to built environments as physical artifacts that humans have created and that form parts of the landscape

  • Buildings

  • Roads

  • Signs

  • Fences

• Cultural landscape - anything built by humans

  • Buildings

  • Roads

1. Comprehension - establish the basic info clearly (scale, what, where, when)

2. Identification - identify and describe patterns in phenomena (are they connected?)

3. Explanation - explain how individual phenomena might form a pattern (why is something where it is? How did it get there? effects?)

4. Prediction - Explain why the pattern is important and what/where it might lead to (so what? what if? effects?)

Maps are the most important tool used by geographers

• Effectively communicates spacial info

• Essential in highlighting and analyzing patterns

There are two broad categories of maps:

1. Reference maps

2. Thematic maps

Types of reference maps:

• Political maps - show and label human-created boundaries and designations (countries, states, cities, and capitals)

• Physical maps - show and label natural features, such as mountains, rivers, and deserts

• Plat maps - show and label property lines and details of ownership

• Locator maps - illustrations used in books and advertisements to show specific locations mentioned in the text

Types of thematic maps:

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

  • Shows rates or other quantitative data in defined areas (percent of people who speak English)

• Dot distribution maps - used to show the specific location of something

  • One dot may stand for one thing or a lot more

  • Any kind of symbol can be used instead of dots

• Graduated symbol maps - use symbols of different sizes to indicate different amounts of a phenomenon. large = more, small = less

  • Symbols may overlap

  • Also called Proportional symbol maps

• Isoline maps - (also called isometric maps) use lines to connect points of equal value to depict variations in the data across space (weather maps)

  • Where lines are close together it depicts rapid change and where the lines are farther apart, the phenomenon is relatively the same

  • The most common type of isoline maps are Topographic maps

    • Popular with hikers to help depict surface features

• Cartogram - maps that assign space by the size of some datum

  • World population by country, larger populations appearing larger on the map

Projections:

• Map projection is the process of showing a curved surface on a flat map surface

• Cartographers decide what to preserve:

  • Area

  • Shape

  • Distance

  • Direction

Models in Geography:

• Geographic models - represent reality or theories about reality

• Help geographers see spatial patterns

• Focus on the influence of specific factors

• Understand variations from place to place

• Help explain, describe, and sometimes predict spatial activity

Two basic types of models:

1. Spatial model

2. Nonspatial models

Spatial Models:

• Look at stylized maps and illustrate theories about spatial distribution

  • Von Thünen model = agricultural land use

  • Least cost theory = industrial location

  • Central place theory = distribution of cities

Nonspatial Models:

• Illustrate theories and concepts using words, graphs, or tables

  • Depict changes over time rather than across space

  • Demographic transition model

  • Wallerstein’s world-systems theory (combines elements of spatial and nonspatial models)

Formulas and graphs:

• Mathematical formulas help geographers understand how the world works

• Function much like models

• Mathematical calculations that produce a statistic

  • Ex: crude birth/death rates; doubling times for population, population densities; rank-size rule (formula results are theoretical)

• Graphs - used to illustrate population structures

  • Ex: Population pyramids, geographic concepts (distance-decay), and even models (demographic transition model)

Use of Models:

• Von Thünen’s model of land use

  • One of the most famous

  • Developed by German farmer and economist, Johan Heinrich Von Thünen

  • The first half of the 1800s

• Models - math formulas based on data and used to make predictions

• If reality varies from the prediction Geographers rethink the model

  • Ex: Ask why

  • Models are neither “wrong” nor “right,“ just useful in understanding the world

Regionalization and Regions:

• Regionalization - process geographers use to divide and categorize space into smaller areal units

  • Like how a writer divides a book into chapters and classifies them

World Regions:

• Geographers divide the world into regions and subregions

  • Ex: continents

• Large regions = 7 continents

  • North America

  • South America

  • Europe

  • Oceania

  • Antarctica

  • Africa

  • Asia

• Large regions - also include three cultural regions with shared languages and histories

• Central America - part of North America but with a culture more influenced by Spain and Portugal

• Sub-Saharan Africa - distinguished from the rest of Africa (west, central, east southern Africa)

• The Russian Federation - spans eastern Europe and northern Asia

• Sub-regions - regions divided into smaller areas

  • Shares some characteristics with larger regions but is distinctive in some ways

    • Ex: Religious or language differences

    • Ex: The region of Latin America covers parts of North and South America from Mexico to Chile

• Smaller regions - by changing scale and zooming in subregions can be further divided

  • Can be based on: climate, landforms, or human geography

  • One place can be a part of many regions or subregions

Geospatial data:

• Includes all information that can be tied to a specific place

  • Location of things like mountains or roads

  • Human activity and trades

• Most geospatial data is observed and gathered in the field

  • Fieldwork: census, interviews, informal observations by geographers, etc.

• Technology - collection is easier, more accurate, better storage, analysis, and display

  • Ex: GOS, remote sensing, GIS

Quantitative and Qualitative Data:

• Quantitative data is information measured by numbers

  • The distribution of people by income or age often used with geographic info systems

• Qualitative data is not represented by numbers

  • Collected as interviews, descriptions, visual observations, opinions, etc.

  • Harder to analyze than quantitative

Chapter Two Key Terms:

1. An area: is defined by one predominant or universal characteristic throughout an entire area

2. Cartogram: the sizes of countries (or other real unit) are shown according to a specific statistic

3. Cartographic scale: Refers to the way the map communicates the ratio to what it represents

4. Cloropleth maps: use various colors and patterns to show the location and distribution of spatial data

5. Conic projection: a projection in which an area of the earth is projected onto a cone whose vertex is usually above one of the poles

6. Dot distribution maps: used to show the specific location and distribution of something across the territory of the map

7. Fieldwork: data observed and recorded on location and collecting it

8. Functional regions: organized around a focal point and defined by an activity that occurs across the region

9. Geographic models: representations of reality or theories about reality to help them see and understand spatial patterns, the influence of specific factors, and variations

10. Geographic scale: refers to the amount of territory it represents

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

12. Homogenous regions: demarcated on the basis of internal uniformity

13. Isoline maps: isometric maps, use lines that connect points of equal value to depict variations in the data

14. Locator maps: illustrations used in books and advertisements to show specific locations

15. Map projection: the process of showing a curved surface on a flat surface

16. Mental maps: maps people create in their minds

17. Mercator map projection: cylindrical map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and south as down

18. Nodal regions: demarcated on the basis of internal uniformity

19. Nonspatial models: illustrate theories and concepts using words, graphs, or tables

20. Patterns: general arrangements of things being studied

21. Perceptual regions: defined by the informal sense of a place that people ascribe to them

22. Peters projection: areas are shown in the correct proportion with distorted shape

23. Physical maps: shows and labels human-created boundaries and designations such as countries, states, cities, and capitals

24. Plat maps: shows and labels property lines and details of land ownership

25. Political maps: shows and labels human-created boundaries and designations such as countries, states, cities, and capitals

26. Process: repeated sequences of events

27. Qualitative data: not usually represented by numbers (quality)

28. Quantitative data: info that can be measured and recorded using numbers (quantity)

29. Reference maps: Aptly named because people use them to reference things

30. Regionalization: the practice of separating regions into smaller portions

31. Relative scale: Geographic scale

32. Road maps: shows and labels roads, highways, etc.

33. Robinson projection: shows the entire world at once

34. Scale of data: Differs from cartographic or geographic scales by providing more information

35. Scale: the ratio between the size of real-life things and those things on a map

36. Spatial models: illustrates theories about spatial distributions

37. Subregions: divided regions into smaller areas

38. Thematic maps: show spatial aspects of info of a phenomenon

39. Topographic maps: points of equal elevation creating contours that depict surface features

40. Uniform regions: an area by one predominant or universal characteristic throughout its entire area

41. Vernacular regions: perceptual regions

Chapter Three

Population Distribution

• Half of the world’s population lives in just one percent of the land

• Populated distribution - the pattern of human settlement/the spread of people across the earth

• Population density - the measure of the average population per square mile/kilometer of an area

Most suitable land for human habitation:

• Midlatitudes - most people live in these regions. Between 30°-60° North and 30°-60° South

  • More moderate climates

  • Better soils

• Low-lying areas - most people live in these areas instead of the mountains

  • Better soils - close to oceans for transportation and food (plus the ocean makes it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer)

• Freshwater - most people live near lakes or rivers (drink, food, irrigation, transportation)

• Other resources - natural resources (forest products and minerals)

Human Factors Influencing Population Distribution:

• Natural features

• Other people

• Safety

• Jobs

• Live near friends/relatives

• Trade routes

• Political decisions

• Religious reasons

Scale of analysis and Physical factors:

• People want to live on the most desirable land

• Best climate

• Elevation (flood concerns)

Scale of analysis and human factors:

• Polluted air

• Economic opportunities

• Governments influence population size

Population Density:

• measures the average number of people in an area

• Calculated as a number of people per square mile/kilometer

• Demographers use three types of population density

• Doesn’t indicate where people live

• Arithmetic population density - most commonly used and calculated by dividing a region’s population by its total area

  • Even distribution (many suburbs and farming and ranching areas)

  • Cluster distribution (near church or concerned with defense)

  • Linear distribution (along a river or transit route)

Physiological Population Density:

• Calculated by dividing population by the amount of arable land (land suitable for growing crops)

• Carrying capacity - the population it can support without significant environmental deterioration

Agricultural Population Density:

• This compares the number of farmers to the area of arable land

  • Developed countries = lower agricultural population densities (tech)

  • Less developed countries = higher agricultural population densities (can’t afford tech, so more labor is needed)

Population Density and Time:

• Density varies with the time of the year

  • Ex: Warm weather states like Arizona and Florida became more dense in the winter due to “snowbirds“ from northern states fleeing the cold weather

• Time of day influences population density

  • Ex: Out-of-town people commuting for work increase population density

The Implications of distribution and density:

• Most economic decisions are at least partly on population density

  • Business near large customer base

• Political - rulings by the Supreme Court require state legislation to create electoral districts

• Redistricting - because urban areas are continuing to increase the population and the population of rural areas is usually shrinking

  • This results in changing district sizes

Environment and Natural Resources:

• Overpopulation - having more people than a region can support

• High population density = environmental problems

  • Ex: pollution or resource depletion

  • Sewage and industrial wastes = no drinkable water

Infrastructure and urban services:

• High-density housing (apartments) instead of single-family homes

• Sewer, water, snowplowing, and policing are more cost-effective in high population-density areas

• Negative for high population density = contamination of water supply or spreading diseases

Population Composition:

• Demographic characteristics

  • Language

  • Religion

  • Ethnicity

  • Age and sex

Population pyramids:

• One of the most useful tools for studying populations is the age-sex composition graph which is commonly called a population pyramid

• Based on age and gender data

• Also provides info on birth dates, death rates, how long people live on average, and economic development

• Gives evidence of past events and natural disasters, wars, political changes, and epidemics

Reading a pyramid:

• The vertical axis shows age groups (cohorts). Often listed in the middle but sometimes on the left or right

  • Male on left

  • Female on right

• Values on the horizontal axis may be percentages or absolute numbers of males and females

• Most commonly constructed at country scale, but can be for cities, states, or multi-county regions

Determining Population trends:

• If a population has a wide base and tapers upward, the region’s population is growing

• If a pyramid is nearly symmetrical/balanced, left to right, indicating a balance of males and females

• Changes in bar size due to war, natural disaster, epidemics, or government interference

  • Slow down in births is called a birth deficit

Baby booms, busts, and echoes:

• Birth boom rates will spike when a war ends. This increase/boom can last a few to many years

• Once the boom ends, births are lower for a number of years. This baby bust lasts until the boomers reach child-bearing age

• This significant increase in births that show up is an echo reflecting previous/earlier baby boom

Migration and other anomalies:

• An asymmetrical; pyramid, one with significant differences between cohorts, suggests something notable happened in the population

  • Bars are longer for 18-25 people and less younger people

  • A small city with a large university

  • Shortage of school funding causes families to move away when they have kids

Examples of Anomalies in Population Pyramids continued:

• Bars are longer for people ages 25 to 50 than for children

  • An economic crisis causes people to decide growth to have fewer kids

  • A government policy to slow population growth discourages births

  • An epidemic causes many infants to die

• Bars are longer for people over the age of 65

  • A community in a warm climate attracts retirees

  • A lack of jobs causes young people to move away

• Bars are longer for males than females

  • An oil boom attracts people for jobs that are traditionally done by men

Dependency Ratio:

• Population pyramid data is used frequently to estimate the dependency ratio (DR). This value compares the working to nonworking parts of the population

• Potential workforce - people ages 15-64 who are considered to be society’s labor force

• Everyone else (people under 15 and over 64) is called the dependent population because they are too young/old to work

  • Dividing the potential workforce by the dependent population results in the dependency ratio

Chapter Three Key Terms:

1. Age-sex composition: population pyramid, based only on age and gender (birth rates/death rated and life span)

2. Agricultural population density: compares the number of farmers to the area of arable land

3. Arable land: land suitable for growing crops

4. Arithmetic population density: most commonly used and calculated by dividing a region’s population by its total area

5. Baby boom: birthrate spikes

6. Baby bust: once the boom ends and until the boomers start reproducing

7. Birth deficit: the slowdown of births

8. Carrying capacity: the population it can support without significant environmental deterioration

9. Cohort: often listed in the middle of the population pyramids, the verticle axis showing age groups

10. Dependency ratio: a value comparing the working and non-working parts of the population

11. Dependent workforce: people under 15 and people over 64 who don’t work

12. Echo: the increase reflects an earlier/previous baby boom

13. Flow: refers to the pattern and movement of ideas, people, products, and other phenomena

14. Midlatitudes: the regions between 30°-60° N and 30°-60° S

15. Overpopulation: having more people than it can support

16. Physiological population density: calculated by dividing the population by the amount of arable land

17. Population density: a measure of the average population per square mile/kilometer of an area

18. Population distribution: the pattern of human settlement

19. Population pyramid: age-sex composition graph

20. Potential workforce: the group expected to be society’s workforce (ages 15-64)

21. Redistricting: situations usually resulting in physically smaller urban districts and larger rural districts

22. Site: the characteristics at the immediate location

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

24. Social stratification: the hierarchical diversion of people into groups based on status/power

Chapter Four

Before the 19th century, the total global population grew very slowly. Around 1800, the population reached 1 billion

• By making small improvements in farming techniques

• Clearing forest land to plant crops

• Finding new regions of ocean dense with fish

• The population today is over 8 billion

Measuring the number of births:

• Two different statistics are used to describe the birth rate:

1. Crude Birth Rate (CBR) - the number of births per year for 1000 people

2. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) - women in their childbearing years

   • TFR = the average number of children who would be born per woman of that group in a country

• In most of the world, the TFR was higher in the past

  • Before 1800, Europe averaged 6.2 children; people lived on farms, so more farmhands. Many children died as infants. Life span = 40 years

Changes in Fertility:

• Beginning in the mid-18th century, Europeans began having fewer children

  • Larger armies (more men away from home)

  • Industrial Revolution (people relied more on machines than muscle power)

  • People decided to have fewer children

  • With industrialization, people lived longer so even though the TFR declined, population growth increased

Role of Women in society:

• Over the past 250 years, as countries industrialize, people move from rural to urban areas

• Urban families have less