Exhaustive Human Geography Study Guide: Vocabulary, Concepts, and Applications
Foundations of Human Geography and Mapping
Human Geography - Verbatim Definition: Branch of geography that studies how human activity affects or is influenced by Earth’s Surface. - Explanation and Application: This field explores the intricate relationships existing between people and the spaces they inhabit.
Map - Verbatim Definition: A two dimensional flat representation of a geographic area or place. - Explanation and Application: Maps are used primarily to show where different locations are situated.
Data Aggregation - Verbatim Definition: The process of collecting and organizing large amounts of information. - Explanation and Application: Data can be organized at various levels, including the scale of a single family, an entire country, or even the whole world.
Spatial Perspective - Verbatim Definition: A geographic perspective that seeks to identify and explain the uses of space. - Explanation and Application: Geographers utilize this perspective to investigate where cities were constructed and the underlying reasons behind those choices.
Spatial Patterns - Verbatim Definition: The placement or arrangement of objects on Earth’s surface, also includes the space between those objects. - Explanation and Application: A notable spatial pattern is that many of the world's major cities are situated on bodies of water. This occurred because, prior to the advent of airplane travel, humans relied primarily on boats for transportation.
Distance, Direction, and Map Components
Time-Distance Decay - Verbatim Definition: AKA: “first law of geography,” the idea that near things are more related than distant things, and interaction between two places decreases the farther apart they are. - Explanation and Application: A practical example is that the farther individuals live from a grocery store, the less likely they are to shop at that specific location.
Map Legend - Verbatim Definition: A key to the meaning of the symbols and colors on a map. - Explanation and Application: It is usually situated in a box in the corner of the map and provides an explanation regarding the map's subject matter.
Scale - Verbatim Definition: The territorial extent of an idea or object. - Explanation and Application: At a local scale, a map might reveal how many Italian restaurants exist within a specific neighborhood. Conversely, a map at a global scale might display every Italian restaurant found across the entire world.
Absolute Direction - Verbatim Definition: Corresponds to the direction on a compass: north, south, east, west, and combinations such as northeast and southwest. - Explanation and Application: By using a compass rose, one can identify the absolute direction of various places or regions.
Absolute Distance - Verbatim Definition: The distance that can be measured with a standard unit of length, such as a foot, yard, mile, or kilometer. - Explanation and Application: For instance, the distance between your home and your school might be measured as exactly .
Relative Direction - Verbatim Definition: A direction that can be described as position, such as in front of or behind, to the left or to the right. - Explanation and Application: When walking to school, you can describe movement as walking forward, backward, or turning left and right.
Relative Distance - Verbatim Definition: A measurement of the level of social, cultural, or economic similarity between places despite their absolute distance from each other. - Explanation and Application: Places may be physically close in absolute distance, but their relative distance can be vast. Example: Two neighborhoods in the same city might be close, yet have a massive disparity in income levels.
Types of Maps and Geographic Representations
Reference Map - Verbatim Definition: A map that shows geographic locations on Earth’s surface, such as the locations of cities or oceans. - Explanation and Application: These maps frequently display names, boundaries, and unique identifiers for geographic areas like provinces, states, or countries.
Elevation - Verbatim Definition: Distance above sea level. - Explanation and Application: Elevation is the measure of how high land is above sea level, typically expressed in feet or meters.
Thematic Map - Verbatim Definition: A map that emphasizes the spatial patterns of geographic statistics or attributes, and sometimes the relationships between them. - Explanation and Application: These maps can illustrate various data characteristics, such as population density in different nations or the most common soil types in a region.
Choropleth Map - Verbatim Definition: A thematic map that shows data aggregated areas, often using different colors to represent different values. - Explanation and Application: This type of map is typically utilized for political units such as a country, state, or province.
Cartogram - Verbatim Definition: A map that distorts the geographic shape of an area in order to show the size of a specific variable, the larger the area on a cartogram, the larger the value of the underlying variable. - Explanation and Application: In a cartogram based on population, China would appear significantly larger than Russia, despite Russia having a much larger physical landmass naturally.
Proportional Symbol Map - Verbatim Definition: A map that uses symbols, (such as circles or dots), of different sizes to represent numerical values. - Explanation and Application: A large circle on a map showing urban populations might represent a city with at least people, while a smaller circle represents a city with or fewer inhabitants.
Dot Density Map - Verbatim Definition: A map that uses dots to represent objects or counts, the dot can represent one object (a one-to-one dot density map), or it can represent a number of objects (a one-to- many dot density map). - Explanation and Application: These maps are effective for simply showing density differences in geographic distributions across a given area.
Map Projections and Distortions
Map Projection - Verbatim Definition: A method for representing the surface of Earth or a celestial sphere on a plane (two-dimensional) surface, all map projections distort some aspect of Earth’s surface. - Explanation and Application: Because every map distorts some aspect of the true surface, cartographers must choose which characteristics to hold true and which to distort based on the map's purpose.
Mercator Projection - Verbatim Definition: A map projection that is useful for navigation because the lines connecting points on the map represent the true compass direction, however, landmasses become increasingly distorted the farther away they are from the equator. - Explanation and Application: This projection displays true compass direction, but landmasses near the poles appear much larger than their actual size.
Peters Projection - Verbatim Definition: A map projection that shows all landmasses with their true areas but distorts their shapes. - Explanation and Application: This equal-area projection maintains correct landmass size relative to one another but results in significant distortion of the shapes of those landmasses.
Robinson Projection - Verbatim Definition: A map projection that attempts to create the most visually appealing representation of Earth by keeping all types of distortion relatively low over most of the map. - Explanation and Application: This projection accepts slight distortions in every aspect to produce a more aesthetically pleasing view of the world.
Goode Homolosine Projection - Verbatim Definition: A map projection that avoids shape distortion and the restrictions of a rectangular map by creating “interruptions” in the map’s continuity, in each section, map projection regions are shown “equally.” - Explanation and Application: This projection focuses on preventing shape distortion by interrupting the map's continuity, resembling how an orange peel looks when laid flat on a surface.
Technical Tools and Data Collection
Census - Verbatim Definition: An official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details about individuals, such as age, sex, and race. - Explanation and Application: This involves counting a population while simultaneously collecting data on various demographic characteristics of the species/group being counted.
Fieldwork - Verbatim Definition: Learning and doing research involving firsthand experience, which takes place outside the classroom setting. - Explanation and Application: Research performed by physically observing and experiencing the environment where data is being collected.
Absolute Location - Verbatim Definition: A precise position on Earth’s surface. - Explanation and Application: This is pinpointed using the intersection of latitude and longitude lines to determine an exact location.
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) - Verbatim Definition: A system of satellites that orbit Earth twice daily and transmit radio signals Earthward, the basis for many map-based apps that provide directions on how to get from one place to another. - Explanation and Application: Owned and maintained by the U.S. government, this space-based navigation system is used globally. Maps use GPS to identify your absolute location and provide data for navigating to your destination.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - Verbatim Definition: A software application for capturing, storing, checking, and displaying data related to positions on Earth’s surface, allows the rapid manipulation of geospatial data for problem-solving and research. - Explanation and Application: Google Maps uses GIS technology to offer layers of information, such as showing gas stations, hotels, and restaurants along a travel route.
Remote Sensing - Verbatim Definition: The scanning of Earth by satellite or high-flying aircraft in order to obtain information about it. - Explanation and Application: This technique provides images that can reveal economic development levels and population patterns.
Satellite Imagery - Verbatim Definition: Images of Earth’s surface gathered from sensors mounted on orbiting satellites, these sensors record in both the visible and non-visible portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing humans to view patterns and processes that are both visible and invisible to the naked eye. - Explanation and Application: This technology grants humans access to data and patterns that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.
Place, Space, and Cultural Landscape
Relative Location - Verbatim Definition: The position of one place (or person) in relation to the position of another place (or person). - Explanation and Application: It is measurable in distance or time. Navigation apps often ask for your mode of transportation because it affects your relative location in terms of time.
Space - Verbatim Definition: The areas we occupy as humans, it has no value until the people who occupy it make it their own. - Explanation and Application: Space refers to the Earth itself; it remains value-neutral until humans begin occupying it and assigning value through their experiences.
Place - Verbatim Definition: How we modify space based on who we are as a group of people. - Explanation and Application: A statue is an example of a place; it starts as just an object in space but gains value when it represents something significant to the people in that area.
Cultural Landscape - Verbatim Definition: The built forms that cultural groups create in inhabiting Earth -- farm fields, cities, houses, and so on, -- and the meaning, values, representations, and experiences associated with those forms. - Explanation and Application: Looking at the patchwork of fields from a plane, a city skyline, or a main road through town is an observation of the cultural landscape.
Time-Space Compression - Verbatim Definition: The decreasing distance between places, as measured by travel time or cost, often summarized by the phrase “the world is shrinking.” - Explanation and Application: This concept refers to the effects of high-speed air travel, the Internet, telecommunications, and containerized shipping, all of which have helped globalize the world.
Types of Diffusion
Expansion Diffusion - Verbatim Definition: Occurs when ideas or practices spread throughout a population, from area to area, in a snowballing process, so that the total number of knowers or users and the areas of occurrence increase. - Explanation/Analogy: Similar to a snowball rolling down a hill, which gets larger as it travels further.
Hierarchical Diffusion - Verbatim Definition: Occurs when ideas leapfrog from one important person, community, or city to another, bypassing other persons, communities, or rural areas. - Explanation and Application: Trends started by popular athletes or celebrities can skip sections of society to reach specific populations before becoming widespread.
Contagious Diffusion - Verbatim Definition: The wavelike spread of ideas in the manner of a contagious disease or forest fire, moving throughout space without regard for hierarchy. - Explanation and Application: This is common on social media where videos and memes “go viral” by spreading rapidly from person to person.
Stimulus Diffusion - Verbatim Definition: Occurs when a specific trait is rejected, but the underlying idea is accepted. - Explanation and Application: The show "Sesame Street" involves stimulus diffusion; while produced globally with the same characters, the stories are adapted to different languages and cultural contexts, combining innovation and imitation.
Relocation Diffusion - Verbatim Definition: 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. - Explanation and Application: Religions often spread this way, such as European settlers bringing Christianity to the Americas. Ethnic foods also spread through migrants bringing preferences to new countries.
Human-Environment Interaction and Resources
Ecosystem - Verbatim Definition: A territorially bounded system consisting of the interaction between humans and the environment. - Explanation and Application: Ecosystems are impacted by individual actions as well as social, economic, and large-scale political forces.
Natural Resources - Verbatim Definition: Materials or substances that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain. - Explanation and Application: Examples include fertile land, water, forests, and minerals.
Renewable Resources - Verbatim Definition: Natural resources that Earth will naturally replenish over time. - Explanation and Application: This includes wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, and water.
Nonrenewable Resources - Verbatim Definition: Natural resources that are available on Earth in finite quantities and will eventually be used up. - Explanation and Application: Natural gas is a primary example and serves as the main source of electricity in the United States.
Environmental Determinism - Verbatim Definition: The belief that the physical environment is the dominant force shaping cultures and that humanity is a passive product of its physical surroundings. - Explanation and Application: Adherents once believed that people from rugged mountain terrains were inherently conservative, simple, unimaginative, and backward.
Possibilism - Verbatim Definition: The belief that any physical environment offers a number of possible ways for society to develop and that humans can find ways to overcome environmental challenges. - Explanation and Application: While the environment shapes culture, the actual way of life depends on the choices people make within the possibilities offered by their environment.
Scales of Geographic Analysis
Global Scale - Verbatim Definition: Geographic scale that looks at geographic phenomena across the entire world. - Explanation and Application: Globalization has made this scale vital; geographers study issues like pollution at this level because wind and water carry it across the entire globe.
Regional Scale Analysis - Verbatim Definition: Geographic scale that identifies and analyzes geographic phenomena within a particular region. - Explanation and Application: This allows for comparisons, such as analyzing the average economic growth in European Union (EU) countries versus those in non-EU countries.
National Scale Analysis - Verbatim Definition: Geographic scale that identifies and analyzes geographic phenomena within a specific country. - Explanation and Application: A geographer might use this scale to determine why the average income in Vietnam is much higher than that in Myanmar.
Local Scale Analysis - Verbatim Definition: Geographic scale that identifies and analyzes geographic phenomena within a state or province, a city or town, or a neighborhood. - Explanation and Application: Geographers might use this to study specific neighborhoods in cities like Hamburg, Berlin, or Bremen to distinguish between wealthy and poor areas.
Glocal Perspective - Verbatim Definition: Geographic perspective that acknowledges the two-way relationship between local communities and global patterns, emphasizing that the forces of globalization need to take into account local-scale cultural, economic, and environmental conditions. - Explanation and Application: For instance, the global availability of products affects the consumption choices made in even the smallest local communities.
Regional Concepts and Processes
Region - Verbatim Definition: A geographical unit based on one or more unifying characteristics, functions, or patterns of activity that are taking place. - Explanation and Application: These areas of Earth's surface possess identifiable characteristics that differentiate them from other areas.
Formal Region - Verbatim Definition: A geographical area inhabited by people who have one or more traits in common. - Explanation and Application: Geographers map spatial differences using these; an example is identifying an Arabic-language region where the majority of the population speaks Arabic as their native tongue.
Functional Region - Verbatim Definition: A geographic area that has been organized to function politically, socially, culturally, or economically as one unit. - Explanation and Application: Examples include a trade area, a church, a precinct, a country, or a city.
Perceptual/Vernacular Region - Verbatim Definition: A geographic area that is perceived to exist by its inhabitants, based on the widespread acceptance and use of a unique regional name. - Explanation and Application: These are defined by shared attitudes and feelings. Examples include the –American South– and –Midwest–; these definitions exist in the minds of the people rather than as formal map lines.
Sense of Place - Verbatim Definition: How a person feels about a particular place and why it is important to them. - Explanation and Application: Personal mental maps include prominent locations like a person's house, a football field, the mall, or a school.
Activity Space - Verbatim Definition: Where a person goes and what he or she does on a day-to-day basis. - Explanation and Application: Mental maps reflect these spaces by showing a person’s route to school, their preferred lunch spot, or their grocery store.
Regional Analysis - Verbatim Definition: The process of examining patterns and processes within and between regions at multiple geographic scales (local, national, regional, and global). - Explanation and Application: Geographers use this process to evaluate interactions and patterns occurring at local, national, regional, and global levels.