Geographic Principles, Population Dynamics, Cultural Patterns, and Political Processes

Unit 1: Thinking Geographically

Geographic and Spatial Information

  • Latitude: Measurement of distance north or south of the equator (vertical).
  • Longitude: Measurement of distance west or east of the prime meridian (horizontal).
  • Global Positioning System (GPS): Used for navigation and shows accurate location.
  • Remote Sensing: Satellites orbit Earth and send back data to Earth.
  • Geographic Information System (GIS): A computer system that stores information about locations in layers.

Absolute vs. Relative Location

  • Absolute Location: Coordinates for a location; does not change.
    • Example: “I live at 123 Woodward Dr.”
  • Relative Location: Location in relation to the objects around it.
    • Example: “I live by McDonald's and Walmart.”

Place

  • Unique characteristic of a location.

Time-Distance Decay

  • The further sources are from each other, the less they will contact each other.

Diffusion

  • Definition: How characteristics spread across space from one place to another.
  • Types of Diffusion:
    • Relocation Diffusion: When people emigrate, they take with them their culture and knowledge.
    • Hierarchical Diffusion: Spreads from an important figure, leader, or group.
    • Contagious Diffusion: Quick spread of a characteristic throughout the population.
    • Metaphor: Think of it like a disease; it is contagious and spreads very quickly.
    • Stimulus Diffusion: Main idea is spread, but some changes are made.

Early Maps vs. Contemporary Maps

  • Early Maps:
    • Simple navigation tools.
    • Shows how to get from point A to B.
  • Contemporary Maps:
    • Communication tool.
    • Geographic information explained.

Map Scales and Projections

  • Map Scale: Shows the features in relation to the actual size on the earth.
    • Ratio Scale: For example, 1:10,000.
    • The number on the left will always be the units of distance on the map.
    • The number on the right will always be the units of distance on the Earth’s surface.
    • Every 1 inch represents 10,000 actual inches on Earth’s surface.
    • Written Scale: For example, “1 inch equals 10 miles.”
    • Explains the relationship in words.
    • Graphic Scale: A bar line on the map to show how much distance is covered.
Projection Types
  • Robinson Projection:
    • Used to focus on oceans.
    • Land masses are smaller.
  • Mercator Projection:
    • Accurate shape and direction.
    • Map is rectangular.
    • Size of poles are distorted.

Types of Maps

  • Topographic Maps:
    • Detailed, graphic representations of features on the Earth’s surfaces.
    • Features include:
    • Cultural: international and state borders, buildings, airports, names of places.
    • Hydrography: lakes, rivers, streams, swamps.
    • Relief: Mountains, valleys, cliffs.
    • Vegetation: Woods, clear areas, orchards, vineyards.
    • Uses include: hiking, hunting, surveying, and resource management.
  • Thematic Maps:
    • Also known as statistical maps or special-purpose maps.
    • Show the distribution of one or more specific data themes for the geographical areas shown.
    • Each thematic map includes a base map and statistical data.
    • Types of Thematic Maps:
    • Choropleth Maps:
      • Uses color variations to indicate quantitative values across geographical areas.
      • Importance of interpreting color legends before association with the map.
    • Isoline Maps:
      • Lines that connect points with equal values; can use gradient colors to show different areas.
      • Isolines should maintain equal intervals.
      • Helpful for recognizing patterns between geography and data collections.
    • Dot-Density Maps:
      • Show density differences in geographic distributions across a landscape.
      • Must be drawn on an equal map area projection; using a projection that doesn't maintain size will distort density.
      • Can map raw data such as the number of farms or ratios like number of farms per square km.
      • Function adequately in black and white, which helps when color isn’t available.
    • Cartograms:
      • Combines statistical information with geographical locations; distorted based on what information needs to be displayed.
      • Area Cartograms: Alters physical location by scaling based on a chosen factor (e.g., environmental, physical, social).
      • Distance Cartograms: Displays relative time and distance within a chosen network, distorting time and distance information.

Region Types and Other Information

  • Toponym: Name given to a place on Earth.
    • Example: “158 Woodward Dr” is the house address.
  • Site: Characteristics of a place (e.g., vegetation, hills, streams, and other bodies of water).
  • Situation: Location concerning something else.
    • Example: “My apartment is between Walmart and Kroger.”
  • Formal Region: Everyone shares a common characteristic (e.g., same language, climate, environmental factors, religion).
  • Functional Region: Often organized around a central point (node) that attracts people.
  • Vernacular Region: Also known as perceptual region; reflects a sense of place that often emerges from culture.
    • Example: “South America.”

Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes

Migration

  • Migration: The permanent move to a new location.
    • Humans have migrated for the past 7,000 years.
  • Mobility: General term covering all types of movement.
    • Circulation: Short, repetitive, cyclical movements that recur regularly.
    • Example: Going to work or school.
    • Seasonal Mobility: Migration by season.
    • Example: College students moving to dormitories in the fall and returning home in the spring.
  • Emigration: Moving out of a location.
  • Immigration: Moving into a location.
  • Net Immigration: Number of immigrants minus number of emigrants.
    • Formula: I−E=NI - E = N
    • Positive (Net-in Migration): More immigrants than emigrants.
    • Negative (Net-out Migration): More emigrants than immigrants.
  • Migration occurs less frequently than other forms of mobility; people transfer cultural characteristics such as race, ethnicity, language, and economic practices.

Pull and Push Factors

  • Pull Factors:
    • Reasons why people move into a location.
    • Economic Opportunity.
    • Cultural Freedom.
    • Environmental Comfort.
  • Push Factors:
    • Reasons why people want to move out of a location.
    • Political Reasons: War, political unrest, and severe racism or torture against a specific group.
    • Environmental Issues: Natural disasters.
    • Economic Factors: Economic decline, lack of jobs, or poor pay.

International Migration

  • Definition: Permanent movement from one country to another.
  • Example: Ravenstein's basic laws of migration focus on:
    • The distance that migrants move.
    • The reasons why migrants move.
    • The characteristics of migrants.
  • International Migration Flows:
    • 3% or 214 million people are international migrants.
    • Three largest migration flows:
    • Latin America → North America.
    • South Asia → Europe.
    • South Asia → Southwest Asia.
    • Mexico to the United States is the largest flow.
    • Migration tends to occur from developing to developed countries.
    • Net-in areas: North America, Europe, Southwest Asia, and South Pacific.
    • Net-out areas: Latin America and all regions in India except for Southwest Asia.
    • United States has the most foreign-born residents: 42 million.
    • Second place is Russia with 11 million.
    • Australia and Canada have higher net-in migration rates but lower populations.
    • Highest net-in migration rates are seen in petroleum-exporting areas in Southwest Asia.

Migration Transition

  • Changes in society comparable to those in demographic transition.
  • Geographer Wilbur Zelinsky linked migration transition to demographic transition.

Types of Migration

  • Voluntary Migration:
    • Migrants choose to move, usually for economic reasons; sometimes for environmental reasons.
    • Intervening Opportunity: At a point along the migration route, pull factors encourage settling.
    • Intervening Obstacle: Environmental or cultural features that stop migration.
    • Environmental Examples: Mountains, deserts, bodies of water.
    • Cultural Examples: Ethnocentrism, racism, xenophobia, immigration policies.
  • Quotas: Limit the source regions and numbers of new migrations.
  • Brain Drain: The emigration of highly skilled and educated individuals, injuring the countries they leave.
  • Chain Migration: Migration to a place where family and friends have settled.
  • Forced Migration:
    • Migrants are compelled to move due to cultural or environmental factors.
    • Three groups of forced migration:
    • Refugees: Individuals forced from their homes due to violence or conflict.
    • Internally Displaced Persons (IDP): Individuals seeking refuge within their country due to conflict, hoping to return to their homeland.
    • Asylum Seekers: Individuals seeking international protection but lacking approval for refugee status claims.

Internal Migration

  • Definition: Permanent movement within the same country.
  • Types of Internal Migration:
    • Interregional Migration: Movement from one region of a country to another (e.g., rural to urban).
    • Intraregional Migration: Movement within one region (e.g., urban areas from older cities to newer suburbs).

Population Trends and Information

  • Overpopulation: An area's population exceeds the environment's capacity to support it at an acceptable standard of living.
    • Population Clusters: Over two-thirds of the world's inhabitants are concentrated in four regions:
    • South Asia.
    • East Asia.
    • Southeast Asia.
    • Europe.
    • Low-lying areas with fertile soil and temperate climates, often near oceans or rivers.
  • Sparsely Populated Regions:
    • Avoid clusters in certain areas, such as dry lands, wetlands, cold lands, and highlands.
    • Places considered too harsh for survival.
  • Ecumene: Areas of permanent human settlement.
  • Population Density Measurement: Density can be calculated in three ways:
    • Arithmetic Density: Total number of objects in an area; population divided by land area.
    • Physiological Density: Number of people supported by a unit area of arable land; population divided by arable land area.
    • Agricultural Density: Ratio of number of farmers to the amount of arable land; population of farmers divided by arable land area.

Factors of Population Growth

  • Measures population change in a country/world using these measures:
    • Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Total number of live births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in society.
    • Crude Death Rate (CDR): Total number of deaths in a year for every 1,000 people alive in society.
    • Natural Increase Rate (NIR): Percentage by which population grows in a year.
    • Formula: extCBR−extCDR=extNIRext{CBR} - ext{CDR} = ext{NIR}.
    • Doubling Time: The number of years needed to double the population assuming a constant rate of natural increase.
    • Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): Measure used to understand death rates in a society.
    • Annual number of deaths of infants under one year of age compared to total live births.
    • Total Fertility Rate (TFR): Average number of children a woman will have throughout her childbearing years (ages 15-49).
    • 2.5 for the world, above 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 2 or less in most European countries.
  • Life Expectancy: The average number of years a newborn can expect to live based on current mortality levels.

Population Pyramid

  • Definition: Bar graph displaying a country’s population structure.
    • X-axis: % male displayed to the left of zero, % female to the right.
    • Y-axis: Age cohorts typically grouped in 5-year intervals, with youngest at the bottom and oldest at the top.

Population Structure

  • Dependency Ratio: Number of people too young or old to work compared to the number of people in their productive years.
    • People aged 0 to 14 and over 65 are considered dependents.
  • Sex Ratio: Number of males per 100 females in the population.

Demographic and Epidemiologic Transition

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)
  • Definition: Describes population trends over time between birth and death rates.
    • Stage 1:
    • Most of the world before the industrial revolution.
    • Birth and death rates are very high; population size stays fairly constant
    • Major changes could occur, such as pandemics or wars.
    • Stage 2:
    • Introduction of modern medicine lowers death rates, especially for children.
    • High birth rates result in rapid population growth.
    • Many least developed countries are in this stage.
    • Stage 3:
    • Gradual decrease in birth rates due to improved economic conditions and access to contraceptives.
    • Population growth continues but at a lower rate; many developing countries are at this stage.
    • Stage 4:
    • Both birth and death rates are low, resulting in stabilized population.
    • Indications of a stronger economy, high levels of education, and better healthcare.
    • Most developed countries are in this stage.
    • Stage 5:
    • Significantly lower fertility rates, leading to an elderly population greater than the youth population.
Epidemiologic Transition
  • Definition: Health threats faced at each stage of the demographic transition.
    • Stage 1: Pestilence and famine; high CDR; infectious and parasitic diseases like the Black Plague.
    • Stage 2: Receding pandemics; rapidly declining CDR, with improvements in sanitation, medicine, and nutrition.
    • Stage 3: Degenerative diseases; moderately declining CDR; increase in deaths from chronic disorders due to aging, such as cardiovascular diseases.
    • Stage 4: Delayed degenerative diseases; low but increasing CDR; deaths caused by chronic disorders are delayed due to medical advancements.
    • Stage 5: Possible resurgence of infectious diseases that evolve to resist medical treatment and increase presence in impoverished areas; transport of infected individuals across borders.

Unit 3: Cultural Processes and Patterns

Culture

  • Definition: The body of material traits, customary beliefs, and social forms that constitute a distinct tradition of a group of people.
    • Three Components of Culture:
    • Material Traits: Visible elements that a group possesses and leaves behind.
    • Customary Beliefs: Two important components are language and religion.
    • Social Forms: Maintain values and protect artifacts (ethnicity and political institutions).
    • Migration causes cultural similarities between two locations, while limited interaction can lead to differences.
    • Habit: A repetitive act occurring from an individual.
    • Custom: A repetitive act occurring from a group of people.
    • Hearth: The center of innovation.

Daily Necessities and Leisure Activities

  • Elements of culture emphasized are:
    • Daily necessities, including food, clothing, and shelter.
    • Leisure activities, such as arts and recreation.

Introduction to Folk and Popular Culture

  • Each cultural element has a distinct origin, diffusion, and distribution.
  • Built Environments: Cultural groups take elements from the environment into their culture and build landscapes, modifying nature uniquely.
    • Increased connections with popular culture make maintaining practices difficult.
    • Globalization impacts:
    • Pollution of landscapes.
    • Depletion of scarce resources.
Folk Culture
  • Characteristics:
    • Traditionally practiced by a small, homogenous group living in a rural and isolated area.
    • Changes slowly and differs from place to place.
    • Emphasis on preservation and protection.
    • Unknown hearth sources, dating, and originators.
    • Unique folk customs developed through centuries of relative isolation from other cultural groups.
    • Clothing preferences reflect agricultural processes and climate conditions.
Food Taboos
  • Restrictions on certain foods due to social customs.
    • Muslims: Taboo against eating pork.
    • Hindus: Taboo against eating beef.
    • Housing: Based on environmental resources utilizing stone, grass, sod, and skins.
    • Sacred Spaces: Found in homes based on environmental conditions.
Popular Culture
  • Characteristics:
    • Found in large, heterogeneous societies sharing habits despite personal differences.
    • Changes rapidly through global communications and varies over time.
    • More dominant at a global scale.
    • No concern for modifying the environment based on global values but primarily influenced by developed countries (North America and Europe).
    • Origin can be traced back to individuals or companies.
    • Food consumed in large quantities, with an emphasis on snacks.
    • Clothing styles reflect occupation rather than environment.
    • Housing trends have evolved since the 1940s U.S. construction.

Diffusion of Popular Culture

  • Most important media format is TV.
  • Internet Diffusion: Spread from the U.S. to the rest of the world occurs in about 10 years.
  • Social Media Diffusion: Significant in the 21st century.
  • Himalayan Art: Found in Bhutan, Nepal, northern India, and southern Tibet (China).
    • Religious groups: Tibetan Buddhists (N), Hindus (S), Muslims (W), and Animist (E).
    • Styles vary significantly:
    • Tibetan Buddhists: Idealize divine figures, sometimes bizarre.
    • Hindus: Everyday life representations.
    • Muslims: Beautiful natural motifs.
    • Animist Groups: Symbolism and nature reflections.

Influence of Physical Environment

  • Environmental Determinism: The environment determines food, clothing, and shelter.
    • Example: Waterproof wooden shoes in the Netherlands.

Language

  • Definition: A system of communication through speech, with a collection of sounds understood by a group as having the same meaning.
    • One of the three traits distinguishing cultural values (language, religion, and ethnicity).

Study of Language and Migration

  • Study of language follows migration; contemporary language distribution results from migration.
    • Example: Madagascans speak a language from the same family as Indonesia and the Philippines, indicative of migration from 2000 years ago.
    • Limited interaction after migration leads to language divergence over time, possibly resulting in the creation of separate languages.
    • Interaction and isolation explain the distribution of individual languages and language families.
    • Metaphor for language: Language is likened to luggage that people carry.

Classifying Languages

  • The world features a heterogeneous collection of languages, with some easily documented and others not (particularly in Africa and Asia).
    • Institutional Language: Used in education, work, mass media, and government; 578 recognized by Ethnologue.
    • Official Language: Used by governments for laws and public communication; many countries have official languages, like English in former British colonies.
    • Literary Tradition: Institutional language that is written and spoken; some spoken languages lack a literary tradition.
    • Developing Language: Spoken daily by individuals of all ages; according to Ethnologue, there are 1,598 spoken languages.
    • Vigorous Language: Used daily, but lacks literary tradition; 2,479 according to Ethnologue.
    • Dying Languages: Considered to be in various stages of disappearing.
Organizing Language Families
  • Language Family: A collection of languages related through a common ancestral language predating recorded history (e.g., Indo-European).
  • Language Branch: A collection of languages within a family related through a recent common ancestral language (e.g., Germanic).
  • Language Group: A collection of languages within a branch with common origins and similarities in grammar/vocabulary (e.g., North Germanic).

Language Families: Distribution and Usage

  • Differences among Language Families: Represented through a tree model:
    • Language families form trunks, branches represent different languages.
    • Some trunks divide into branches representing subdivisions of individual languages.
    • Super-families: Represented as roots below the surface, their existence is controversial.
Major Language Families
  • Indo-European:
    • Most widely used language family, dominant in Europe, South Asia, North America, and Latin America.
    • Comprised of eight branches:
    • Widely Used: Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic.
    • Lesser Used: Albanian, Armenian, Celtic, Greek.
  • Sino-Tibetan:
    • Includes languages spoken in China and some smaller countries in Southeast Asia.
    • Languages of China primarily belong to the Sinitic branch.
    • Mandarin: Most common and widely used, spoken by approximately 3/4 of the population.
    • Official language of China and Taiwan, one of the six official languages of the UN.
Language Families Continues
  • Southeast Asian Language Families:
    • Austronesian: Spoken by around 6% of the world, primarily in Indonesia.
    • Most widely spoken language is Javanese, primarily from Java.
    • Austro-Asiatic: Spoken by around 2% of the world; Vietnamese is the most common language.
    • Written in the Roman alphabet since 17th century, influenced by Roman Catholic missionaries.
    • Tai-Kadai: Previously classified as a branch of Sino-Tibetan; spoken in Thailand and parts of China.
East Asian Language Families
  • Japanese:
    • Partly written with Chinese characters; two systems of phonetic symbols used alongside.
  • Korean:
    • Written using a system called hangul/onmun, distinct from Sino-Tibetan languages.
    • Over half of the Korean vocabulary is derived from Chinese.

Other Asian Language Families

  • Dravidian:
    • Principal language family in South Asia, mostly in southern India.
    • Widely used languages include Telugu and Tamil; unknown origins.
  • Altaic:
    • Thought to have originated between Tibet and China; Turkish is the most spoken member.
  • Uralic:
    • Traceable back to a common language first used around 7000 years ago in the Ural Mountains; includes Estonians, Finns, and Hungarians.
African Language Families
  • Number of Languages: The exact number of languages in Africa remains unspecified.
  • Afro-Asiatic:
    • Third largest language family worldwide; Arabic is the primary language.
    • Spoken in 2 dozen countries in Southwest Asia and North Africa.
  • Niger-Congo:
    • Spoken by 95% in Sub-Saharan Africa; major languages include Yoruba and Swahili, which integrates Arabic influence.
  • Nilo-Saharan:
    • Sparse documentation; divided into branches and smaller groups.
America’s Other Language Family
  • Quechuan:
    • Most widely used language family in the western hemisphere aside from Indo-European.
    • Primarily spoken in the Andes Mountains; includes 44 distinct languages with about 9 million speakers.

Distribution of Indo-European Branches

  • Nearly half of the world’s population speaks a language from the Indo-European family.
  • Branches:
    • Germanic Branch:
    • Includes languages such as English, German, and Dutch, along with Scandinavian languages (e.g., Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic).
    • Romance Branch:
    • Most widely used include Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian.
    • Romanian is also prominent and separate from other Romance-speaking regions.
    • Indo-Iranian Branch:
    • Divided into Iranian (e.g., Persian, Pashto) and Indic (e.g., Hindi, the most widely spoken language in India).
Origin and Diffusion of Languages
  • Origin: Language distribution results from geographic processes.
    • Romance languages derived from Latin, influenced by previous spoken languages.
  • Nomadic Warrior Theory: Proposed by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas; suggests Proto-Indo-European speakers originated in Russia and Kazakhstan around 4300 BC and propagated through conquest.
  • Sedentary Farmer Theory: Proposed by archaeologist Colin Renfrew; points to an earlier Proto-Indo-European origin in eastern Turkey, diffusing through agriculture rather than conquest.

Origin and Diffusion of English

  • Celts migrated to the British Isles around 2000 BC, speaking Celtic.
  • German Invasion (450 AD): Tribes (Angles, Jutes, and Saxons) invaded and formed the basis of modern English.
  • Later Viking incursions introduced further linguistic components.
  • Norman Invasion (1066): French became the official language due to Norman control, altering English significantly.

Diffusion of English

  • English diffused to North America in the 17th century, with colonies established in Jamestown and Plymouth.
  • Later expansions occurred in areas such as Ireland, South Asia, and the South Pacific.
  • Combining Languages: Examples include Franglais, Spanglish, and Denglish.
  • Global Importance of English: Dominance facilitates the spread of popular culture, science, and international trade.
Lingua Franca and Pidgin Languages
  • Lingua Franca: Language used for international communication, often simplified between two languages.
  • Pidgin Language: A simplified language form with no native speakers, created for communication between different language users.

Official Languages

  • Countries may have multiple official languages, especially those with diverse populations.
    • Dialect: Regional variation of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.
    • Subdialect: Subdivisions of a dialect that share similarities, focusing mostly on differences in pronunciation and slight vocabulary changes.

English Dialects

  • The migration of English speakers and independent evolution resulted in numerous dialects.
    • Differences in vocabulary arise from exposure to new objects and experiences.
    • Spelling variations for national identity, notably due to figures like Noah Webster.
Religion
  • Universalizing Religion: Attempts to be global by appealing to people, regardless of location or culture (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism).
    • Each religion has a precise place of origin and significant holidays tied to the founder's life.
    • Branches:
    • Christianity:
      • Three branches: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox.
    • Islam:
      • Two branches: Sunni and Shiite.
    • Buddhism: Three branches: Mahayana, Theravada, Vajrayana.
  • Ethnic Religion: Appeals to one group, typically in one place, with more clustered distributions (e.g., Hinduism).
    • Animism: Belief that inanimate objects have spirits.
    • Judaism: The largest ethnic religion, embracing monotheism.
Sacred Places
  • Structures sacred to various religions, such as:
    • Christianity: Churches.
    • Hinduism: Temples.
    • Islam: Mosques.
    • Buddhism: Pagodas.

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