AP Human Geography - Unit 1: Thinking Geographically

1.1 Introduction to Maps

• This topic covers different types of maps, scales, and world map projections.
• Key Points:
  • Reference Maps: Used for general information about places.
    • Political: Show human-created boundaries like countries, states, cities, and capitals.
    • Physical: Display natural features like mountains, rivers, and deserts.
    • Road: Indicate highways, streets, and alleys.
    • Plat: Detail property lines and land ownership.
    • Example: A reference map of Mexico shows cities, rivers, borders, and streets.
  • Thematic Maps: Focus on spatial aspects of information or a phenomenon.
    • Chloropleth: Uses colors, shades, or patterns to show the location and distribution of spatial data; uses rates or other quantitative data (e.g., how many people in an area speak English).
    • Dot Distribution: Shows the specific location and distribution of something; each dot represents a quantity (e.g., one school building could be a dot).
    • Graduated Symbol Maps: Uses symbols of different sizes to indicate different amounts; shows the maximum and minimum of something; uses a map key (e.g., the amount of grocery stores).
    • Isoline Maps: Uses lines that connect points of equal value to depict variations across space.
      • Topographic maps are a type of isoline map, showing points of equal elevation.
  • Cartogram: The size of countries are shown according to a specific statistic; useful for comparing things.
  • Scale: The ratio between the size of things in real life and the size of them on a map.
  • Cartographic Scale: Refers to the way the map communicates the ratio of its size to the size of what it represents.
    • Words: “1 inch equals 10 miles.”
    • Ratio: 1/200,000 - 1 inch on the map is 200,000 inches in reality.
    • Line: A line representing 10 miles in reality (linear/graphic scale).
    • Small Scale Map: Shows a larger area with less detail (e.g., global scale of Earth at night).
    • Large Scale Map: Shows a smaller amount of area with greater detail (e.g., North America at night).
  • Location
    • Absolute Location: The precise spot where something is according to a system.
      • Latitude: The distance north or south of the equator (think up and down like a ladder).
      • Longitude: East or west of the prime meridian.
      • Equator: An imaginary line that circles the globe halfway between the north and south poles.
      • Prime Meridian: An imaginary line that runs from pole to pole through Greenwich, England, at 0 degrees.
      • International Date Line: Roughly follows these lines and makes different accommodations to international boundaries.
    • Relative Location: Where something is in relation to other things (e.g., “just south of the mountains”); can change over time as accessibility changes.
      • Connectivity: How well two locations are tied together by roads or other links.
      • Accessibility: How quickly and easily people in one location can interact with those in another location.
      • Direction: Describes where things are in relation to each other (north, south, east, west).
  • Distance: A measurement of how far or how near things are to one another.
    • Absolute: Measured in terms of feet, miles, meters, or kilometers.
    • Relative: Indicates the degree of nearness based on time/money, dependent on mode of transport.
  • Elevation: The distance of features above sea level, measured in feet or meters.
  • Pattern Distribution: The way a phenomenon is spread out over an area.
    • Clustered/Agglomerated: Arranged in a group or concentrated area, such as restaurants in a food court or a cluster of cities along the US/MX border.
    • Linear: Arranged in a straight line (e.g., towns along a railroad line).
    • Dispersed: Spread out over a large area (e.g., large malls throughout a city).
    • Circular: Equally spaced from a center point, forming a circle (e.g., homes around a popular store).
    • Geometric: Regular arrangement (e.g., squares from Midwest roads).
    • Random: No order to their position (e.g., pet owners in a city).
  • Projections: Showing a curved surface on a flat surface.
    • Mercator: Used for navigation; accurate directions; latitude/longitude in right angles; easy to follow; landmasses near poles are large.
    • Peters: Used for spatial distributions related to area; size of land is accurate; shapes are inaccurate near poles.
    • Conic: General use in mid-latitude countries; size and shape are close to real life; direction is not constant.
    • Robinson: General use; no major distortion; oval shape is more like a globe; area/shape/size are all slightly distorted.
• Different types of maps include reference maps and thematic maps.
• Spatial patterns include absolute and relative distance and direction, clustering, dispersal, and elevation.
• Map projections inevitably distort spatial relationships in shape, area, distance, and direction; systematic methods of transferring a spherical surface to a flat map.
• Distortion occurs in either size, shape, distance, or direction – all projections are compromises (Robinson, Polar).

1.2 Geographic Data

• This topic covers the different types of data and how to gather it.
• Key Points:
  • Landscape Analysis: The task of defining and describing landscapes.
  • Field Observation: The act of physically visiting a location, place, or region and recording first-hand information (writing notes, taking pictures, sketching, counting, interviewing).
  • Spatial Data (and Gathering It): All of the information that can be tied to specific locations.
    • Remote Sensing: Gathers information from satellites that orbit the Earth or other craft above the atmosphere.
    • Aerial Photography: Professional images captured from planes within the atmosphere; most important source of observed data available today.
    • Field Work: Observing and recording data on location, or in the field.
  • Interpreting Data: Better understand the place, area, or landscape being studied.
    • Who are the people migrating into the area? Who is leaving?
    • What are the cultures of these groups of people?
    • What effects will the changes have on the local economy?
    • What are the causes of people moving?
    • What types of human interaction are occurring with the environment?
• Different methods of geographic data collection are identified; data may be gathered in the field by organizations or by individuals.
• Geospatial technologies include geographic information systems (GIS), satellite navigation systems, remote sensing, and online mapping and visualization.
• Spatial information can come from written accounts in the form of field observations, media reports, travel narratives, policy documents, personal interviews, landscape analysis, and photographic interpretation.

1.3 The Power of Geographic Data

• This topic is about different ways to analyze and interpret geospatial data.
• Key Points:
  • Geovisualizations: 2D or 3D interactive maps.
  • Geospatial Technologies: Capture, analyze, and interpret geospatial data.
    • GPS: Receivers on the Earth’s surface use locations of multiple satellites to determine and record a receiver's exact location (locate borders, navigate ships, airplanes, and cars, mapping trails or points).
    • Remote Sensing: The use of cameras or other sensors on aircraft/satellites to collect digital images or videos of the Earth's surface (determine land use/cover, monitor the environment, assessing the spread of spatial phenomena, monitor the weather).
    • GIS: Computer system that can store, analyze, and display information from multiple digital maps or geospatial data sets (analyze crime data, monitor pollution, analyze transportation, plan urban areas).
    • Smartphone/Computer Applications: Location-aware apps that gather, store, and use locational data from computers or other personal devices (suggest stores, tracing pollution, mapping photos).
  • Community-Based Solutions: Increase the likelihood of success because they create buy-in from local residents and are more likely to be culturally accepted.
• Geospatial and geographical data, including census data and satellite imagery, are used at all scales for personal, business and organizational, and governmental decision-making purposes (Earth at Night - Global Scale).
• Level 1 analysis involves asking what, where, when and at what scale.

1.4 Spatial Concepts

• This topic is about the different ways things are arranged and the effects of them.
• Key Points:
  • Spatial Approach: Considers the arrangement of the phenomena being studied.
    • Location, distance, direction, orientation, flow, pattern, interconnection.
    • Movement of people, changes in place, human perceptions.
    • Why are things where they are?
    • How did things become this way?
    • What is changing the distribution pattern?
    • What are the implications of the spatial distribution for people?
  • Space: The area between two or more things.
  • Location: Identifies where specific things are located, either on a grid or relative to other locations.
  • Place: The specific human and physical traits of a location.
  • Region: A group of places in the same area that share a characteristic.
  • Site: Characteristics at the immediate location (soil, climate, labor force, human structures).
  • Situation: The location of a place relative to its surroundings and connectivity (roughly in the middle of a city, NY is a coastal region with easy access to ports).
  • Sense of Place: Related to the concept of place (a local will describe a city differently than a tourist).
  • Toponyms: Place names.
  • Time-Space Compression: The shrinking of time distance, or relative distance between locations because of improved transportation and communication (actual distance doesn’t change).
  • Spatial Interaction: The contact, movement, and flow of things between locations.
  • Flow: The patterns and movement of ideas, people, and products.
  • Friction of Distance: When things are far apart, they tend to be less connected.
  • Distance Decay: Relationship that shows friction of distance.
  • Spatial Association: Matching patterns of distribution, indicates that 2+ phenomena may be related with one another (distribution of malaria & mosquitoes might indicate a connection).
• Spatial concepts include absolute and relative location, space, place, flows, distance decay, time-space compression, and pattern.

1.5 Human-Environmental Interaction

• This topic is all about how humans interact with the world and its resources.
• Key Points:
  • Human-Environment Interaction: The connection and exchange between humans and the natural world.
    • Sustainability, natural resources, land use, pollution, environmental issues.
  • Natural Resources: Items that occur in the natural environment (air, water, oil, fish, soil, minerals).
    • Renewable Resources: Theoretically unlimited and will not be depleted based on human use (air, water, solar, biomass).
    • Nonrenewable Resources: Limited and can be used up by humans (fossil fuels, minerals, soil, fresh water).
  • Sustainability: Trying to use resources in ways that minimize future negative impacts on the world.
    • Sustainable Development Policies: Attempt to solve problems about mass consumption, effects of pollution, and climate change.
  • Land Use: The study of how land is used, modified, and organized by people.
    • Environment: Reference to nature and natural things (plants, air, water, animals).
    • Built Environment: The physical things that humans have created that form part of the landscape (buildings, roads, signs, farms, fences).
    • Cultural Landscape: Anything built by humans and in the realm of land use.
  • Theories of Human-Environmental Use:
    • 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 societal development while ignoring the influence of culture (can’t get over a mountain, across a river).
      • False Conclusions: Inaccurate generalizations that aren’t supported by data or logical reasoning.
    • Possibilism: Acknowledges limits on the effects of the natural environment and focuses more on the role that human and culture plays; humans have more power and influence over their circumstances (people can overcome limits with ingenuity and creativity).
• Concepts of nature and society include sustainability, natural resources, and land use.
• Theories regarding the interaction of the natural environment with human societies have evolved from environmental determinism to possibilism.

1.6 Scales of Analysis

• This is about different scales of analyzing data.
• Key Points:
  • Geographic/Relative Scale: Refers to the area of the world being studied.
  • Global Scale: Map of the entire planet, showing data that covers the whole world.
  • Local Scale: Using a map of a city or neighborhood to study local issues.
  • Scales of Analysis: Different scales are needed for different analyses.
    • Global: Entire world (global Earth at night, world population density map).
    • World/Regional: Multiple countries (North America, South Asia).
    • National: One country (the US, Thailand).
    • National/Regional: A portion of a country or a region within a country (the Midwest, eastern China).
    • Local: A province, state, city, county, or neighborhood (Tennessee, Moscow).
  • Aggregation: When geographers organize data into different scales to more easily map or organize it into a chart or graph, such as by census tract, city, county, or country.
    • Is it supported by the scale of the data?
    • Does the scale of the conclusion match the scale of the data?
    • Is the data accurate or trustworthy?
    • Is there other data that could go against the conclusion?
• Scales of analysis include global, regional, national, and local.
• Patterns and processes at different scales reveal variations in and different interpretations of data.

1.7 Regional Analysis

• This is all about the different regions, what they say and show.
• Key Points:
  • Regions: Have boundaries, unifying traits, cover space, and are created by people.
    • Formal/Uniform/Homogeneous: United by one or more traits.
      • Political: Such as Brazil in SA.
      • Physical: Such as the Sahara Desert.
      • Cultural: Such as SW Nigeria, where most people speak Yoruba.
      • Economic: Such as the Gold Coast of Africa (Ghana), where they export gold.
    • Functional/Nodal: Organized around a focal point and are defined by an activity that occurs across the region; united by networks of communication, transportation, and other interactions.
      • Pizza Delivery: Shop is the node.
      • State or Country: Capital city is the node for the government to work with.
      • Airport: Is a node that connects flights across a region.
    • Perceptual/Vernacular Regions: Informal sense of place that people ascribe to them (the Midwest or the South of the US, Upstate New York).
  • Large World Regions: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Oceania.
  • Subregions: Dividing regions into smaller areas.
    • North America: Canada, United States.
    • South America: Caribbean, Latin America.
    • Europe: West and East Europe.
    • Africa: North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa.
    • Asia: Central Asia, Siberia, East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia.
    • Oceania: Australia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia.
• Regions are defined on the basis of one or more unifying characteristics or on patterns of activity.
• Types of regions include formal, functional, and perceptual/vernacular.
• Regional boundaries are transitional and often contested and overlapping.
• Geographers apply regional analysis at local, national, and global scales.