GEOG MT 1 material - Maps and Geography intro

Countries and stuff

Midterm 2 is the imperative one, two units to study rather than 3.

Short answers are in the midterms. So we gotta firm this scuffle.

Tests are mainly on the course material, some questions are from the lectures and videos and stuff.

Geography is the science of space. A spatial science. Trying to understand patterns to /understand things in the world. Study of spatial variation across the world, an original science.

Sometimes too broad to be cohesive, like anthro and polsci and IR.

Main purpose is to interest relationships b/w the physical/natural and human/social environments.

Main purpose is to interpret relationships b/w physical and social environments

Greeks

  • Eratosthenes (Greek)

    • Geo = Earth

    • Graphein = To write

    • To write about the earth

  • Strabo (Greek)

    • Earliest known work covering peoples and countries to Greeks and Romans

    • 17-volume work titled “Geography”

  • Herodotus (Greek)

    • Treated history geographically and geography historically

    • Totality rather than specificity

    • Europe, Asia (Persia – present-day Iraq), Africa (Libya)

  • Ptolemy (Egypt)

    • Eight-volume work called “Guide to Geography”

    • Map projections (first volume)

    • Table of latitudes and longitudes (six volumes)

    • Maps of different parts of the world (eighth volume)

    • Geography as the science of map-making

    • One of the first cartographers

  • al-Idrisi (Spain)

    • Arab geographer

    • Produced the world’s first map using a grid system of vertical and horizontal lines that designated geographic subdivisions and climatic zones *latitude / longitude*

    • geographic subdivisions and climatic zones

  • China

    • Non-Western representation

Modern world

Physical geography - where and why natural forces occur as they do

Human geography - where and why human activities are located where they are

Geographers are trained in both to understand and analyze human - environment interactions

Geography is about the where why and how - ref.slides

Absolute location - where things are

Relative location - where things are compared to other things

Space - physical gap b/w 2 objects - Abstract

Place - specific point on earth by a particular character - Concrete/ Physical

Location - specific position or coordinates of a place on the earth’s surface

Locale - referring to a specific place or location with distinctive physical, cultural and environmental characteristics. Eg. climate, topography, and human elements like language, customs and traditions.

Sense of place

Emotional Attachment - People develop emotional bonds with locations due to experiences, memories and relationships associated with that location

Cultural identity - Places can be integral to a community’s identity, through culture the certain location can bring a heightened sense of belonging and continuity.

Perception and meaning - The way individuals perceive and interpret a place contributes to its sense of place.

Attachment to Nature - Sense of place is not limited to urban environments it can also be associated with natural landscapes allowing individuals to develop a strong relationship to natural features, landscape and ecosystems

Important because attachment creates a need to maintain and protect certain places

Site - The specific physical attributes and characteristics of a particular location on the Earth’s surface. Incl. the topography, climate and vegetation and other physical elements. / where it is

Situation - The location of a place in relation to its surrounding context, including the spatial relationship to other places, physical features, and accessibility. Focusing on the broader external factors that contribute to the significance and functionality of a place. / how those settlements came to be

LEC 3 - ABSENT

  1. The origins of human species

    1. Mainly coming from Africa, around Ethiopia from the occasional mixing of many isolated populations

    2. Human skulls found around Africa - only theorized where they found the first Humans.

  2. First migrations and the peopling of the planet

    1. First movements down Africa, then through the Middle east, and then expanding throughout Eurasia.

    2. Movements happened as well towards south east asia and towards Australia.

    3. Then finally to North America through Alaska heading southwards.

    4. Research theorized that we first started in Africa, and third into Australia, but since this before the tectonic plates moved, everything else was closer and easier to reach, there was more ice.

    5. Then after Australia, then went traveled up North

  3. Invention of settled agriculture and development of human culture

    1. Fertile crescent allowed for the invention of agriculture and thus the rise of established civilizations

    2. Fertile crescent stretched from the Balkans, to Sinai and towards the Persian Gulf.

    3. General characteristics of fertile soils, stable temps and consistent seasonal change.

    4. Agriculture started in Mesopotamia to the Yellow River

  4. The rise and fall of civilizations

    1. The neolithic revolution was a shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settled communities

    2. Happened in multiple areas incl. The fertile crescent, china, the indus valley, SEA, mesoamerica and parts of Africa from 10k - 4k BCE

    3. Happened in these areas due to the biodiversity and wide gene pool required to crossbreed species

    4. Flood defenses were limited and so people couldn’t farm in large river basins. And so forests were preferred due to their ease of cultivation compared to grasslands.

    5. Farming may have come from already sedentary populations who were more willing to give up their nomadic lifestyles.

    6. Digital Nomad - A person who can work anywhere in the world.

Civilization recognition

  • Agricultural revolution

  • Town dwelling

  • Complex social stratification

  • The development of writing and the alphabet

  • Complex ceremonial centers

  • Trading patterns

    1. Sumeria

      1. Mesopotamia - Built everything out of mud, far from forests, limited wood and stones to build tools.

    2. Ancient civilizations like the Egyptians, Maya, Inca, Romans and Greeks fall under these distinctions.

    3. 21 civilizations in Human history, 5 failed to grow, 16v disappeared leaving 5 that survived

      1. Western Christian

      2. Orthodox Christian

      3. Islamic

      4. Hindu

      5. Far Eastern

  1. The rise of Western civilization from the 10th century BC

    1. Reasons by Jared Diamond

      1. European civilizations became global powers due to their guns, germs and steel. Stemming from Eurasia’s early success in the Neolithic revolution, which tipped the balance towards the Eurasians.

      2. Microbes - large domestication of animals in Eurasia proved an effective breeding ground for diseases and thus Eurasian people became more immune, when Eurasians made contact with people from the new world, they gave the diseases to them. Often more effective than guns.

        1. Indirectly killed civilizations

      3. Writing - societies with food surpluses began to invent alphabets and writing systems / allowed for colonial endeavors to be administered and coordinated.

      4. Weapons - populations living in regions of food surplus could develop new skills and divide labor more due to the lesser time needed to gather food. This allowed them to invent better and more effective weapons.

      5. Centralised Political Institutions - food surplus allowed for the development of larger and more complex societies and capable political institutions. (Centralization and Decentralization)

REVIEW

  • Both neighbor states are water providing / water sources

    • Colorado was more economically diverse while Wyoming was more stagnant

    • Colorado had less state land asw

    • Horn of Africa is where the first human skulls were found

    • Scientists are arguing over the origin of humans being east of Africa.

Geography and Maps

  • Maps are important since they represent physical and social elements that illustrate the workings of human-environment relationships

    • Geography as a discipline always looks at the people - environment relationship

  • Geography is distinguished from other disciplines by relying on maps

    • Helps in displaying geopolitics

  • Two-dimensional representation of the earth’s surface (or at least portions of it)

    • Projections and globes

  • Displays and analyzes various information about the world or specific regions

    • Powerful tools to influence the thought of the masses and on their worldview

Mapmaking (Cartography)

  • Ancient maps were abstract and tried to describe the things around them.

  • When and how the earliest maps were made are unclear - maps of local terrain are believed to have been independently invented by many cultures

Ancient Greeks and Maps

  • Usually considered the founders of scientific cartography

    • Relied on geometry, astronomy, and observations of the natural world to create maps as accurate as possible for the time

    • Knew the general size and shape of the earth

    • Created the earliest paper maps for navigation and the depiction of areas

Anaximander

  • Credited with developing one of the first maps of the world

  • Circular form and showed the known lands of the world grouped around the aegean sea at the center - Kinda chintzy and booky

  • Centered around the Aegean sea

Hecataeus

  • Developed Periodos Ges

  • 2 books that looked at the point to point coastal survey

    • Europe and the Med

    • Asia based on the Erythrean sea (indian ocean)

  • Describes countries and inhabitants of the known world like Egypt being comprehensive

  • Corrected, expanded and improved Anaxi’s map

Eratosthenes

  • Improved maps w the accounts of Alexander the Great and his successors

  • Expanded the size of asia understanding the actual size of the continent

  • First geographer to incorporate parallels and meridians in his maps - Understood earth as a sphere

  • More quantitative

Strabo

  • Famous for his 17 volume work Geographica

  • Presented a descriptive history of people and places frome diff regions of the world known to his era

  • More qualitative side

  • Acknowledged the astronomical and mathematical efforts toward geography (as represented by Eratosthenes), but argued that a descriptive approach was more practical

Maps and the Dark Ages

  • Maps kept alive by Arab cartographers - bc of the fall of science in Europe

  • Translation and preservation of the works of Ptolemy into Arabic

  • Arab cartographers produced the first reliable globe of the western world

  • Cartographers in the middle ages drew maps based on their religious beliefs

O&T map

  • O - the worlds and oceans

  • T - rivers that split the continents

    • The Nile

    • The Med

    • River Don

  • Holy city of Jerusalem was placed in the middle

Religion depicts things that are unseen like monsters and cannibals.

Islamic Golden Age

  • Like the Greeks before, the Arabs use math and astronomical formulas to help them create diff map projections

  • 1154 - al - Idrisi made a map of the world that was better than the O&T EU maps that were based on Religious beliefs

    • More empirical?

  • It included the continent of Eurasia, Scandinavia, Arabian peninsula, Sri Lanka and the Black and Caspian seas

Maps in the 15th century

  • Printing and engraving allowed for map production to increase dramatically

    • Regular people made maps through printing processes

      • Included cosmographies

    • Age of discovery

      • Portuguese and Spanish drew maps based on their exploring

    • Able to add things to maps like coastlines and the interiors of continents

    • This was also in the century of the biggest mistakes in mapmaking

      • “Here be dragons” - Island of California - Rupes Nigra

      • Lots of misrepresentation

Maps from the 16th to the 19th centuries

  • As explorations of the new world continued, various continents were added onto maps

    • 3 A continent?

      • Americas - 16th century

      • Australia - 17th century

      • Antarctica - 19th century

2 purposes of maps

  1. Tool for storing reference material - like books

    1. Helps us learn where things are located

  2. Tool for communicating geographic information

    1. Human activities

    2. Physical landscapes

    3. Others

Many types of maps

Land based - more to show the land

Political maps - showing the borders and countries in the world.

Earth isn’t flat

  • Aristotle was the first to demonstrate the Earth is spherical using 3 arguments

  1. Matter falls toward a common center

  2. The earth casts a circular shadow on the moon during an eclipse

  3. The visible groups of stars change as one travels further away from the equator and from different locations.

Cartography and scale

  • Cartographer

  • Decision on how much of the Earth’s surface to display on a map

  • SCALE - Relationship of a feature’s size on a map to its actual size on Earth.

3 Ways to represent scale

  • Fraction or ratio

    • Shows the fraction of an object or land feature on the map

    • Units have to be the same on the map and on the ground.

  • Written statement

    • Least common

  • Graphic bar

    • Shows the dist. b/w 2 or more prominent landmarks

    • A common element on a map layout

  • The appropriate scale depends on the info you want to display

Large scale and small scale maps

  • Large scale - MORE INFO

    • Small portion of the earth surface

      • More info is represented - more minute info

    • Provides a wealth of detail about the place represented

    • The more you zoom into a map the more you pick up minute information

  • Small scale - LESS INFO

    • Large portion of the earth’s surface

    • Omits many details bv of a lack of space to project onto a map

    • Can effectively communicate processes and trends that affect everyone

    • Broader

Elements of a map

DOGSTAILS

  • Date*

  • Orientation

  • Grid

  • Scale

  • Title* - Important

  • Author*

  • Index

  • Legend

  • Source*

    • * The 4 starred elements usually appear on a map though not always together.

A lot of lines

  • Human geographers describe locations on the Earth’s surface using human made lines on a globe

    • Parallels and Meridians

  • Parallels

    • Circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians

  • Meridians

    • Arc drawn b/w the north and south poles

Parallels and Latitudes

  • Are the same except

    • Latitude is a numbering system to indicate the location of a parallel

    • Equator is a 0 deg latitude

    • Runs east to west

  • Measures north and south location - Clarify

  • North pole is 90 deg north latitude

  • South pole is 90 deg south latitude

  • Other latitudes

Equator tropics and circles

Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn

  • They’re important because it's where the majority of the rainforests on earth are located.

    • The Amazon - The lungs of the earth

49 deg parallel

  • What separates Canada and the Yanks

  • Draws the majority of the Canadian border

Meridians and Longitude

  • Are the same except

    • Similar to latitude it is a numbering system to indicate the location of a meridian

  • Prime meridian is 0 deg longitude

  • Runs north and south

  • Measures east and west locations - Clarify

  • Meridian is on the other side of the world - 180 deg longitude

  • Time zones?

    • Traveling 15 deg longitude east of a location = traveling to a place that’s one hour earlier - Gaining an hour

    • Traveling 15 deg longitude west of a location = traveling to a place that is one hour later - Losing an hour

Prime meridian

  • Right on Greenwich in ENGLAND

180 degree Meridian

  • Arbitrary

Latitude and Longitude combined - CLARIFY

  • Good example of how geography works at the nexus b/w natural and social sciences

  • Latitude (Natural science)

    • Scientifically derived from the earth’s shape and its rotation around the sun

    • Even in antiquity latitude could be measured by the length of daylight and position of the sun and stars

  • Longitude (Social Science)

    • Not reliant on the stars

    • Formed by an arbitrary line

    • Prime meridian could have been anywhere else

    • UK had the Royal Navy

      • International agreement among 25 nations chose Greenwich as the prime meridian

      • Longitude cannot be independently determined

        • Needs the works of humans to understand where they start and end

Reading geographic coordinates.