Chapter 1 Assessment Human Geography

Process for asking geographic question

1. Ask question with spatial or landscape component 2.Choose scale of analysis for research 3. Apply one or more geographic concepts

Culture Complex

A distinct combination of cultural traits.

Vernacular/Perceptual Region

A region that exists only as a conceptualization or an idea and not a physical demarcated entity

Possibilism

A response to determinism that holds that human decision making, not the environment, is the critical factor in cultural development

Culture Trait

A single attribute of a culture. ex: Wearing a turban

GIS

A system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of spatial and geographical data.

Location Theory

Addresses questions of what economic activities are located where and why

Place

All places have unique human and physical characteristics. One purpose of geography is to study then special character and meaning of place.

Cultural Hearth

An area where cultural traits develop and from which cultural traits diffuse.

Hierarchical Diffusion

An idea or innovation is spreads by passing first among the most connected places or people

Expansion Diffusion

An innovation or idea develops in a hearth and remains strong there while also spreading outward

Formal Physical Region

Based on a shared physical geographic criterion.

Perception of places

Belief or "Understanding" about a place developed through books, movies, stories, and pictures

Why is Spatial Distribution important?

By looking at how something is distributed across space, a geographer can raise questions about how the arrangement came about, what processes created the pattern, and what relationships exist among different places and things.

Example of a use for remotely sensed data

Can survey images of the Haiti Earthquake, the destruction and impact

What do geographers use GIS in?

Compare spatial data, human and physical geographic research.

Region

Constitutes an area that shares similar characteristics and as a whole is distinct from other regions.

Culture

Culture refers not only to the music, literature, and arts of a society but to all the other features of its way of life.

Functional Region

Defined by a particular set of activities or interactions that occur within it. Nodes (Places) that are part of the same functional region interact to create connections

Relative Location

Describes the location of a place in relation to other human and physical features. Relative locations change but absolute locations do not.

What does spatial interaction between places depend on?

Distance among places, the accessibility of places, and the transportation and communication connectivity among places.

Two meanings of scale in geography

Distance on a map compared to distance on Earth, spatial extent of something. Usually second scale is used

What do geographers use to explore linkages among people and places and to explain differences across, people, places, scales, and times?

Fieldwork, Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS, Qualitative and Quantitative techniques.

Spatial Perspective

Focuses on learning the location of humans as it relates to interaction. Observing a multitude of geographic phenomena.

Types of regions

Formal, Functional, and Perceptual

What we know shapes-

Our perception of places

We see different _______ at different scales

Patterns

Geocaching

People leave treasures "caches" somewhere, mark the coordinates, and post clues on the internet. If you find the treasure you can take it.

Region (Theme)

Phenomena are not evenly distributed on Earth's surface. Instead features tend to be concentrated in particular areas, or regions.

Cultural Barriers

Prescriptions cultures make rendering certain certain innovations, ideas, or practices unacceptable or un-adoptable in that particular culture

Globalization

Process that is increasing interactions, deepening relationships, and accelerating interdependence across national borders

Cultural traits can ____ contagious diffusion and _____ stimulus diffusion

Prohibit, Encourage, ex: McDonalds in India

Epidemic

Regional outbreak of a disease

Remote sensing

Remotely sensed data are collected by satellites and aircraft that are often almost instantaneously available.

Reference Maps

Show locations of places and geographic features

Sense of place

State of mind derived from infusing a place with meaning and emotion, labeling a place with a certain character.

What is physical geography?

Study of spatial and material characteristics of physical environment.

Thematic maps

Tell stories, typically showing the degree of some attribute or the movement of geographic phenomena

Mikesell's definition of geography?

The "why of where". ex: Why are somethings found in certain places but not others?

Cultural landscape

The visible imprint of human activity on the landscape

Formal Region

Has a shared trait, either physical or cultural.

Generalized Maps

Help us see general trends, but we cannot see all the cases of a given phenomena. ex: World map of annual precipitation

Location

Highlights how the geographical position of people and things on Earth's surface affects what happens and why

Medical Geography

How place and location influence health. Mapping distribution of a disease

What is Spatial Distribution?

How something is distributed across space, the arrangement of phenomena across Earth's surface.

What is spatial arrangement?

How things are laid out, organized, and arranged on Earth, and how they appear on the landscape.

Environmental Determinism

Human behavior, individually and collectively, is strongly affected by, the physical environment

What is human geography?

Human geographers study people and places. How people Make places, how we Organize space and society, how we Interact with people in other places and across space, and how we make Sense of others and ourselves in our localities, regions, and the world.

Sequent Occupance

Imprints made by a sequence of occupants, whose imprints are layered one on top of the other

Relocation Diffusion

Involves the actual movement of individuals who have already adopted the idea/innovation and who carry it to a new locale, where they disseminate(spread it widely) it

Why is understanding regional geography of a place important?

It allows us to make sense of the information we have about places and digest new place-based information as well.

Why is knowledge of how events have developed over time?

It is critical to understand who we are and where we are going

The scale at which we study tells us what __________ we can expect to see

Level of detail

Human-Environment Interactions

Looking at relationships between humans and environments.

M.O.I.S

Make, Organize, Interact, Sense

Mental Map

Maps we carry in our minds of place we have and have never been to. Formed from going to places or from hearing information about them. Mental maps of our activity spaces are much more accurate

Distance

Measured physical space between two places

Movement

Mobility of people, goods, and ideas. An expression of the interconnectedness of places.

MR.HeLP

Movement, Region, Human-Environment Interaction, Location, Place

Cartography

The art and science of making maps

Time Distance Decay

The declining degree of acceptance of an idea or innovation with increasing time and distance from its point of origin or source.

Connectivity

The degree of linkage between locations in a network.

Accesibility

The ease of reaching one location from another

Landscape

The material character of a place; the complex of natural features, human structure, and other tangible features give a place a particular form

Activity Spaces

The places we travel to routinely in our rounds of daily activity.

What are all geographers interested in?

The spatial arrangement of places and phenomena.

Contagious Diffusion

The spread of an idea, innovation or some other item through a population by contact from person to person

Diffusion

The spread of ideas, disease, technology, etc.. from on place to another

Stimulus Diffusion

The spread of the underlying principle although a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse. ex: Nike and Adidas using the stimulus of Under Armor's heat gear clothing.

Cultural Ecology

The study of relationships between human cultures and the environment. (How people interact with each other because of their environmental context.)

Political Ecology

The study of relationships between political, economic, and social factors with environmental issues and changes.

Independent Invention

The term for a trait with many cultural hearths that developed independent of each other.

Rescale

To alter the scale of something

What do geographers use scale for? (1st Key Question)

To understand individual, local, regional, national and global interrelationships.

What is the mission of human geography?

Understand and explain the endless diversity of people and places on the Earth

Terra Incognita

Unknown lands that are off limits

Absolute Location

Uses a coordinate system that allows for the precise plotting of where on Earth something is

GPS

Uses satellites to allow us to locate features on Earth with extraordinary accuracy

Why is studying phenomena at different scales important?

We can study a single geographic phenomena across different scales in order to see how what is happening at the global scale affect localities and what happens at a local scale affects the globe.

What is relationship between processes at different scales?

What happens at a certain scale

Pandemic

Worldwide outbreak of a disease