Thinking Geographically and More

Map Projections and Scale

  • Every map has some form of distortion.
  • Scale of Analysis:
    • Small scale: Larger area with less detail.
    • Large scale: Smaller area with more detail.
  • Common map projections: Mercator, Robinson.
  • Data types:
    • Qualitative: Descriptive qualities.
    • Quantitative: Numerical data.
  • Space: Physical dimension where objects are located.
  • Place: Specific point on Earth with meaning to humans.

Regions

  • Functional Regions: Geographical areas with a node or center.
  • Vernacular/Perceptual Regions: Regions with common characteristics.
  • Formal Regions: Geographical regions defined by common boundaries and characteristics.
  • Environmental Determinism: The idea that the environment determines how people live.
  • Map and Spatial Analysis: Essential for representing and analyzing spatial data.
  • Distance Decay: The relationship between distance and interaction between places.

Maps and Planning

  • Maps serve various purposes.
  • Thematic Maps: Maps portraying a specific theme.
  • Reference Maps: Maps showing locations in space.
  • Topographic Maps: Maps showing natural and man-made features.
  • Urban Planning and Development:
    • Analyzes land distribution, land use patterns, and transportation networks to inform urban decision-making.
  • Epidemiology: Tracks the spread of viral diseases.

Population

  • Population Densities:
    • Arithmetic Density: \frac{\text{Total Population}}{\text{Total Land Area}}
    • Physiological Density: \frac{\text{Total Population}}{\text{Amount of Arable Land}}
    • Agricultural Density: \frac{\text{Number of Farmers}}{\text{Amount of Arable Land}}
  • Key Terms:
    • Crude Birth Rate (CBR)
    • Crude Death Rate (CDR)
    • Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
    • Dependency Ratio
    • Sex Ratio
    • Doubling Time Ratio
  • Zero Population Growth: More common in developed countries.

Population Models and Migration

  • Epidemiological Transition Model: Stages of development linked with causes of death.
  • Pronatalist Policies: Policies encouraging more births.
  • Antinatalist Policies: Policies encouraging fewer births.
  • Neo-Malthusian Model:
    • Population grows exponentially, potentially exceeding carrying capacity.
    • Believers are called Neo-Malthusians.
  • Migration:
    • Voluntary, forced, or non-voluntary.
    • Push and pull factors (environmental, political, economic, or social).
  • Patterns of International Migration:
    • Step migration, chain migration, circular migration, transnational migration, etc.

Culture

  • Cultural Relativism: Viewing a culture from its own perspective.
  • Ethnocentrism: Judging a culture based on one's own social norms.
  • Culture: Shared practices, beliefs, attitudes, or customs.
  • Sense of Place: Cultural landscape.
  • Centripetal Forces: Unite.
  • Centrifugal Forces: Pull apart.

Diffusion

  • Types of Diffusion:
    • Relocation Diffusion: Spread through migration.
    • Expansion Diffusion: Idea expands to more people.
    • Hierarchical Diffusion: Top-down diffusion.
    • Contagious Diffusion: Spreads in all directions.
    • Stimulus Diffusion: Adapts to different cultural landscapes.
  • Colonialism & Imperialism: Led to lingua francas (common languages).
  • Space-Time Compression: Technology & communication reduce perceived distance.
  • Internet: Main source of diffusion.
  • Syncretism: Two cultures combine to form a new culture.
  • Multiculturalism: Various ethnic groups in a society.
  • Folk & Indigenous Cultures: Tend to isolate themselves.
  • Universal Religions: Spread widely (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Hinduism).
  • Ethnic Religions: (e.g., Judaism, Hinduism) originate from a specific hearth (starting point).

Political Geography

  • Spatial organization of political processes and influence of geographical factors.
  • Territoriality: Control of space through borders and boundaries.
  • Sovereignty: Supreme authority of a state to govern itself.
  • Nation-State: Political entity with defined territory, government, and population.
  • Geopolitics: Examines the influence of geographical factors on states.
  • Nation vs. State:
    • Nation: Group sharing cultural identity; doesn't necessarily have a state.
    • State: Permanent population, sovereign government, recognized by other states.
  • Multinational States: States with two or more nations coexisting.
  • Multistate Nations: Nation existing across multiple states (e.g., Korean nation).
  • Stateless Nation: Nation without its own state.
  • Autonomous Regions: Regions with self-government.

Boundaries and Geopolitics

  • Colonialism: Powerful country takes over a weaker one.
  • Imperialism: Extending country's power through colonization or military force.
  • Shatterbelt Region: Region caught between fighting powers.
  • Neocolonialism: Control through economic pressures.
  • Types of Boundaries:
    • Relic Boundaries: No longer exist but impact cultural landscape.
    • Antecedent Boundaries: Existed before human settlement.
    • Subsequent Boundaries: Based on ethnic groups and cultures.
    • Consequent Boundaries: Divide cultural groups.
    • Superimposed Boundaries: Created by a foreign state.
    • Geometric Boundaries: Straight lines (e.g., latitude).
  • Law of the Sea:
    • 12 miles: Territorial waters.
    • 24 miles: Contiguous zone.
    • 200 miles: Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
    • Beyond 200 miles: International waters.
  • Gerrymandering: Manipulating voting districts.
    • Cracking or packing.
  • Unitary States: Centralized power.
  • Federal States: Shared power (e.g., US).
  • Centrifugal vs. Centripetal forces.
  • Irredentism: Claiming territory based on national or ethnic ties.
  • Devolution: Transfer of power to regional governments.
  • State Sovereignty: State's right to govern itself.
  • Supranational Organizations: Groups of states working together (e.g., EU, NATO, UN).
  • Quota systems: Limiting minority members.
  • Peace of Westphalia: Shaped the idea of states.
  • Township and Range: Regular blocks of land.
  • Creolized: Two languages forming another.

Agriculture

  • Intensive Agriculture: Plantations, mixed crops/livestock, market gardening.
  • Extensive Agriculture: Requires more land, manual labor, far from urban areas.
    • (e.g., shifting cultivation).
  • Subsistence Farming: Feeding your family.
  • Commercial Farming: Selling for profit.
  • Clustered Settlement Patterns: Homes close together (urban).
  • Dispersed Settlement Patterns: Homes spread out (rural).
  • Linear Settlement Patterns: Homes along a road or river.
  • Metes and Bounds: Boundaries marked by landmarks.
  • Township and Range: Grid systems using longitude and latitude.
  • Long Lots: Narrow lots connected to transportation (e.g., France).
  • Agricultural Hearths: Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley River.
  • Columbian Exchange: Diffusion of food, plants, animals, and diseases.

Agricultural Revolutions

  • First Revolution: Planting, farming, subsistence farming.
  • Second Revolution: Manufacturing, machine farming.
  • Third Revolution (Green Revolution): GMOs, chemical fertilizers.
  • Monocropping: Growing the same crop each year.
  • Monoculture: Growing one type of crop at a time, switching each season.
  • Large Corporate Farms: High production, low cost.
  • Family Farms: Higher costs, more expensive food.
  • Value-Added Specialty Crops: Increase in value as production occurs.
    • E.g., wheat to flour.
  • GMOs: Genetically modified organisms.
  • Food Deserts: Urban areas lacking fresh & healthy food.
  • Women in Agriculture:
    • Subsistence farmers in less developed countries.
    • Paid lower wages as countries develop; earn more roles.
  • Bid-Rent Theory: Relations of prices from an urban or large market farm, the manufacturing area.
  • Von Thunen Model: Market in the middle, with dairy, forests, crops, and ranch farms around it.

Urban Geography

  • Site Factors: Unique characteristics (climate, resources, location).
  • Situation Factors: Connections between places (rivers, roads, ports).
  • Megacity: Over 10 million.
  • Metacity: Over 20 million.
  • Boomburbs: Rapidly growing suburbs with a suburban feel.
  • Exurb: Settlement outside suburbs connected to a metro area.
  • Edge Cities: Urban areas on the outskirts of a city.
  • Cultural Trends: Spread throughout urban areas.
  • Gravity Model, Central Place Theory.

Urban Models

  • Threshold: Population needed to support a service.
  • Primate City Rule: Largest city in a less developed country.
  • Rank-Size Rule: Rank of a city's population = \frac{\text{Largest city's population}}{\text{Rank of the city in question}}
  • Concentric Zone Model: CBD in the center.
  • Squatter Settlements: Common in LDCs, low-income, without legal claims.
  • Hoyt Sector Model: Transportation and industry sectors.
  • Multiple Nuclei Model: Cities have multiple CBDs.
  • Galactic Model (Peripheral Model): Entities come from outside the city.
  • Bid-Rent Model: Land is cheaper farther from the urban area.
  • Infrastructure: Basic facilities, buildings, roads, power supply.
  • Urban Sprawl: Uncontrolled expansion of urban areas.
  • Gentrification: Raising property values in low-income areas.
  • New Urbanism: Walkable neighborhoods reducing urban sprawl.
  • Green Belts: Areas where development is restricted.
  • Urban Growth Boundaries: Prevent urban sprawl.

Economic Development

  • Formal Economy: Jobs monitored by the government.
  • Informal Economy: Not regulated (e.g., black market).
  • Just-in-Time Delivery: Products delivered almost immediately.
  • Agglomeration: Clustering of similar industries.
  • Growth Poles: Areas defining economic development.

Economic Sectors

  • Primary Sector: Natural resources (farming, hunting, gathering).
  • Secondary Sector; Manufacturing and creating things
  • Tertiary Sector: Servicing jobs, core countries.
  • Quaternary Sector: Gathering information.
  • Quinary Sector: Decision-making processes.
  • Special Economic Zone: Different trade laws.
  • Export Processing Zone: Encouraging foreign relations.
  • Free Trade Zone: Goods traded without specific customs.
  • Tariffs: Taxes on imports.
  • Neoliberal Policies: NAFTA, International Monetary Fund.
  • Micro loans: More money is given to women to start a business or bank account also communicating small businesses.
  • Comparative Advantage: Ability to supply a product or service better than others.
  • Opportunity Cost: Value of an option not taken.
  • Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Total goods and services produced inside a country.
  • Gross National Product: Value of goods/services produced by a country's citizens.
  • Gross National Income Per Capita: \frac{\text{Country's income}}{\text{Population}}
  • HDI (Human Development Index) and GEI (Gender Equality Index): Life expectancy and standard of living.
  • World System Theory: Core, semi-periphery, and periphery countries.
  • Rostow's Stages of Development: Traditional society, preconditions for takeoff, takeoff, drive to maturity, high mass consumption.