human geography notes
Geography: The study of places and spaces on Earth-asking why things are, why they are there, and how people and environments affect each other.
Geographers ask questions like:
Movement: How do people, goods, and ideas travel?
Region: How can we group areas with similar traits?
Human-Environment Interaction: How do people adapt to, depend on, and change the environment?
Human Geography: The study of people and how they live, organize space and create patterns on Earth.
What human geographers study:
Culture: shared beliefs, customs, language, and traditions.
Population density: How many people live in a given area.
Urbanization:Growth of cities and the shift from rural to urban living
Migration: Movement of people from one place to another.
Economy: How people produce, trade, and use resources.
Human Environment Interaction: How do people depend on, adapt to, and modify the environment.
Three key relationships:
Depend: people rely on resources(water,soil,energy)
Adapt: People adjust behavior/technology to conditions(building design, clothing, farming methods).
Modify: People change the environments(dams,roads,deforestation, irrigation).
Physical Geography: The study of Earth’s natural features and processes.
What physical geographers study:
Landforms:Natural shapes of Earth’s surface
Climate: Long-term weather patterns in an area.
Ecosystem: A community of living things interacting with their environment.
Biome: A large ecosystem (desert, tundra, rainforest.)
Why is it important to learn about Geography?
We use it everyday when we are driving, going to school, weather, land use, and resources
WHAT IS A MAP? AND ITS PARTS
A map is a symbolic representation of selected characteristics of a place, usually drawn on a flat surface.
Cartography is the science and art of making maps.
Some parts of a map are:
Scale
Compass Rose
Legend/Key
GPS
Velocity: A measure of how fast something moves in a specific location.
How does a map help you:
It helps you find cities, locations, and physical features.
It allows you to know where you are going
It shows you countries and their sizes
It analyzes different people and places
It depicts the distribution of human activities.
A Map also contains specific lines such as the equator which is the line in the middle of the earth that separates the earth into Northern and Southern Hemisphere. The prime meridian it’s also another line in the middle of the Earth but it splits the Earth into western and eastern hemisphere. We also have the tropic of capricorn which is the line below the equator, and the tropic of cancer which is above the equator.
There is also the Artic Circle which is a line that is all the north of the equator near Alaska. Places around this line have darkness the 24 hours of the day because the sun always hits it. While on the other hand the Antarctic Circle is all the way South of the equator near the Antarctica, and around this place there’s light the 24 hours of the day.
There is different types of maps such as:
Physical Map: this only shows different landforms
Political Maps: Mainly shows countries, states, territories, capitals, and major cities.
Thematic Map: Maps with a special purpose, such as:
Topographical- large scale detail representation of relief, high elevation
Dot Density- uses a dot to show a region or phenomenon
Choropleth- map that uses differences in shading, coloring, or the placing of symbols within predefined areas to indicate the average value of a property or quantity in those areas. It mostly used for temperature.
Graduated- Symbol uses the visual variable of size to represent differences in the magnitude of a discrete, abruptly changing phenomenon, ex counts of population
Cartogram- Map is distorted based on specific info
MAP PROJECTIONS
projections: the scientific method of transferring locations on the Earth’s surface to a flat map
Results:
shape can be distorted
Distance can become increased or decreased
The relative size of different areas may be altered
Directions can be distorted
There is different types of Map projections such as:
Robinson - shows the entire world at once and it was created as a compromise to show the whole world as one
Peterson - makes the world “look right” - areas true to size
Mercator- cylinder(circle) in such a way that all the parallels of latitude have the same length as the equator- usually used for sailing.
Goode’s interrupted, equal-area, composite projection composed of 12 regions that form six lobes
Regions
Region- an area of the world defined by a certain set of characteristics
Formal region- everyone shares in common one or more characteristics
states in the U.S
Voting styles
Help explain global patters
Functional region- area organized around a focal point.
used to display information about geographical areas
cellphone reception
Vernacular region- area that exists due a cultural identify
southern area of the U.S