Geography Lecture Notes - Vocabulary Flashcards

What is Geography?

  • Geography encompasses two main branches:
    • Physical Geography: Deals with Earth’s natural features and processes.
    • Human Geography: Examines how human activity impacts or is influenced by the Earth’s surface.

Physical Geography

  • Focuses on the Earth's natural features and processes.
  • Examples of specific areas of study:
    • Geomorphology: Studies landforms on the Earth’s surface.
    • Pedology: Study of soils.
    • Biogeography: Investigates spatial relationships between plants and animals.
    • Hydrology: Study of water in all its forms.
    • Meteorology: Study of short-term atmospheric circulation.
    • Climatology: Studies long-term effects of weather and atmosphere on life.
    • Geology: Studies the Earth’s surface and subsurface.

Human Geography

  • Examines how human activity impacts or is influenced by the Earth’s surface.
  • Examples of specific areas of study:
    • Demography: Statistical study of populations.
    • Economics: Development and application of economic theories and concepts.
    • Settlement Geography: Studies factors influencing human settlement (social, material, organizational, spiritual, and cultural).
    • Historical Geography: Studies geographic phenomena changes over time.
    • Political Geography: Studies political consequences of relationships between physical geography, state territories, and state power.

5 Themes of Geography

  • Location: Where is it?
  • Place: What is it like?
  • Region: How are places similar or different?
  • Movement: How do people move from one place to another?
  • Human-Environment Interaction: How do people relate to the physical world?

Types of Maps

  • Two main types of maps:
    • Reference Maps: General information about places.
      • Political Maps: Show human-created boundaries and designations (countries, cities).
      • Physical Maps: Show and label natural features (rivers, mountains).
      • Road Maps
    • Thematic Maps: Show spatial aspects of information or a phenomenon.
      • Choropleth Maps: Use colors, shades, or patterns to show the location and distribution of spatial data; darker colors usually indicate higher statistical values.
      • Dot Maps: Show the specific location and distribution of information, with each dot representing a specified quantity.
      • Graduated (Proportional) Symbol Maps: Use symbols of different sizes to indicate different amounts of what is being mapped.
      • Isoline Maps: Use lines to connect points of equal value, showing variations in data across space; common type is topographic maps showing elevation.
      • Cartograms: Sizes of countries or regions are shown according to some specific statistic.

Spatial Patterns

  • Maps can show:
    • Clustering (grouping) of a phenomenon.
    • Dispersal (scattering) of a phenomenon.

Elevation Representation

  • Elevation can be shown by both choropleth and isoline maps.

Map Distortions

  • All maps contain distortions because the three-dimensional Earth cannot be perfectly represented on a flat surface.
  • Useful maps are selective in what they include and exclude.

Map Projections

  • Map projections are the process of showing a curved surface (the Earth) on a flat surface (a map).

  • Common map projections and their characteristics:

    • Mercator:
      • Advantage: Correct shape of land masses; useful for oceanic navigation.
      • Disadvantage: Size of land is massively distorted.
    • Goode’s:
      • Advantage: Minimizes distortion of size and shape of land masses.
      • Disadvantage: Land masses appear large compared to oceans; not suitable for oceanic travel.
    • Polar:
      • Advantage: Accurately displays polar regions; realistic continent size.
      • Disadvantage: Distortion increases away from the poles.
    • Gall-Peters:
      • Advantage: Accurate land mass size; better depicts the size of developing countries.
      • Disadvantage: Inaccurate land shape.
    • Winkel Tripel (Robinson):
      • Advantage: No major distortion; oval shape appears more like a globe.
      • Disadvantage: Slight distortion of area, shape, size, and direction.

Scale of Analysis

  • Scale: How zoomed in/out the map or image is.
  • Map scale highlights the visibility of available features on a map.
    • Zoomed Out = SMALL SCALE (e.g., World Map).
    • Zoomed IN = LARGE SCALE (e.g., neighborhood).

Geographic (Map) Scale

  • Global Scale: Map of the world.
  • Regional Scale: Map of a specific area of the world.
  • National Scale: Map of a specific country.
  • Local Scale: Map of a state, city, or county.

Scale vs. Scale of Analysis

  • Scale: How zoomed in/out the map or image is; map scale highlights the visibility of available features on a map.
  • Scale of Analysis: The level of analysis at which data is aggregated (or combined/totaled) on a map.
  • Four Types of Scale of Analysis: Global, Regional, National & Local
    • Local Scale of Analysis: Data aggregated at the local level (e.g., zip codes, counties, or states/provinces).
    • National Scale of Analysis: Data aggregated at the national level, displaying data for one or more countries.
    • Regional Scale of Analysis: Data aggregated at the regional level (e.g., continents or world regions).
    • Global Scale of Analysis: Data aggregated at the global level (often not very useful).

Analyzing Maps

  • When analyzing maps, consider:
    • What is the geographic scale of the map?
    • What is the scale of analysis of the map?

Regions

  • Regions are how geographers divide and characterize space into smaller units.
    • Analogous to historians dividing time into historical periods.

Types of Regions

  • Formal Region:
    • An area united by one or more traits.
    • Has a defined border.
    • Examples: Sahara Desert (physical), Northern Belgium (cultural - Flemish speakers), Montgomery County, MD, USA (political).
  • Functional Region:
    • Organized around a focal point (node).
    • Defined by an activity that occurs across the region.
    • Examples: Pizza delivery area (pizza store is the node), sports team fanbase, newspaper circulation.
  • Perceptual/Vernacular Region:
    • Defined by the informal sense of place people give to them.
    • Boundaries vary widely.
    • People have a different sense of what defines/unites these regions.
    • Examples: The American “South”, “Upstate” New York.

Regional Boundaries

  • Regional boundaries are transitional, often contested, and frequently overlap.

Contested Boundaries

  • Boundaries that are disputed for religious, political, or cultural reasons.
  • Examples:
    • Syria and the Kurds: Kurdish ethnic group living in Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, desiring their own homeland.
    • South Asia Boundaries: Kashmir region, contested between Pakistan, India, and China.

Geospatial Technologies

  • Geospatial technologies include:
    • Geographic information systems (GIS).
    • Satellite navigation systems (GPS).
    • Remote sensing.
    • Online mapping and visualization.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

  • Computer system that can store, analyze, and display information from multiple digital maps.
  • Uses: Analysis of crime data, transportation/travel time analysis, urban planning.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

  • GPS receivers use satellites to determine and record exact location.
  • Uses: Navigating ships, aircraft, and cars; locating borders.

Remote Sensing

  • Use of cameras on aircraft or satellites to collect digital images of the Earth’s surface.
  • Uses: Determining land cover and land use, monitoring environmental change and the weather.

Online Mapping and Visualization

  • Websites that provide graphical and text information in the form of maps and databases (e.g., Google Earth).
  • Uses: Planning trips, finding landmarks and businesses, plotting storm tracks.

Uses of Geospatial and Geographical Data

  • Decision-making at all scales by individuals, businesses, and governmental organizations.
  • Example of Census and American Community Survey data being used to identify “Play Deserts”.

Spatial Concepts

  • Geographers analyze relationships among and between places to reveal important spatial patterns through spatial concepts including:
    • Absolute and Relative Location
    • Space
    • Place
    • Distance Decay
    • Time-Space compression
    • Pattern

Location

  • Absolute Location:
    • Precise spot that never changes.
    • Latitude and Longitude.
    • Street Addresses
  • Relative Location:
    • Description of where something is in relation to other things.
    • Can change over time

Absolute Location - Latitude

  • Lines of Latitude:
    • Run parallel to one another (they never intersect).
    • Center line is 0º North and South (the equator).
    • They are NOT equal in length; they get shorter as they approach the poles.
    • High (60º - 90º), Mid (30º - 60º) and Low (0º - 30º) latitudes

Absolute Location - Longitude

  • Lines of Longitude
    • Also called meridians
    • 0º East and West is the Prime Meridian
      • Located in Greenwich England
    • Meridians all meet at the poles
    • International Date Line is roughly 180º but deviates a bit to accommodate for international boundaries
    • Time zones are approx. 15 degrees of longitude apart

Relative Location

  • Where something is located in relation to other things
  • Changes over time as accessibility changes
    • EX: Ghost Towns of the west
      • Water sources dried up
      • New highways built
      • Mines closed

Space vs. Place

  • Space
    • A location with no cultural meaning
  • Place
    • The specific human and physical characteristics of a location
    • Space evolves into place as humans place their cultural traits on the space

Place

  • Two ways to refer to a place:
    • Site
    • Situation
  • Site
    • Characteristics of the location
      • Soil type, climate, human structures, etc.
  • Situation
    • Synonym for relative location
    • Can change over time

Sense of Place

  • People perceive characteristics of places differently based on their personal beliefs
  • Emotional ties/feelings people have for a place

Flows

  • Movement of people, things, or information from one place to another
  • Become much faster and less expensive as technology improves

Distance Decay

  • As distance between places increases, interaction between the places decreases
  • Friction of distance
    • When things are farther apart, they tend to be less well connected

Time - Space Compression

  • The shrinking “time distance” between locations due to improved transportation and communication
  • Technology!
  • Global forces now influence culture almost everywhere
  • Local diversity reduced

Pattern

  • Geometric arrangement of things like people, houses, stores, etc.
  • This arrangement (pattern) can be:
    • Clustered
    • Random
    • Uniform

Types of Diffusion

  • Expansion Diffusion
    • Ideas or practices spread throughout a population, from area to area, so that the total number of knowers or users and the areas of occurrence increase
      • Hierarchical diffusion
      • Contagious diffusion
      • Stimulus diffusion

Hierarchical Diffusion

  • Occurs when ideas leapfrog from one important person, community, or city to another, bypassing other persons, communities, or rural areas
  • Example:
    • Trends set by celebrities
    • Sushi- LA + NY first restaurants

Contagious Diffusion

  • The wavelike spread of ideas in the manner of a contagious disease or forest fire, moving throughout space without regard for hierarchy
  • Example:
    • Social media- “going viral”

Stimulus Diffusion

  • Occurs when a specific trait is rejected, but the underlying idea is accepted
  • Examples:
    • McDonalds around the world
    • Sesame Street- adapted in other places with different themes

Relocation Diffusion

  • Occurs when individuals or groups with a particular idea or practice migrate from one location to another, thereby bringing the idea or practice to their new homeland
  • Examples:
    • Food, Religion