| Question |
Answer |
| Globalization |
force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope. |
| Physical Geography |
study of physical phenomena on Earth |
| Human Geography |
study of human phenomena on Earth (language, religion, identity) |
| Spatial |
Arrangement of places and phenomena, how they are laid out, organized, and arranged on Earth, and how they appear on the landscape. |
| spatial distribution |
how something is laid out across space. |
| pattern |
design of spatial distribution (how something is laid out across space.) |
| spatial perspective |
looking at how things are laid out. Observing variations in geographic phenomena across space. |
| 5 Themes of Geography |
location, human-environment, region, place, movement |
| location |
the geographic position of people and things on the earth's surface and how they affect what happens and why. |
| human-environment |
relationship among phenomena in individual places (including the relationship between humans and the physical world). |
| region |
features that tend to be concentrated in particular areas (ex. U.S.: New England, Mid-West, East Coast, South, North...) |
| place |
uniqueness of a location. |
| movement |
mobility of people, goods, and ideas across the surface of the planet. |
| sense of place |
infusing a place with meaing and emotion, but remembering important events that occurred in a place, or by labeling a place with a certain character. (Ex. feeling of "home".) |
| perceptions of places |
developed ideas about places people have never been through books, movies, stories, and pictures. (NYC, Los Angeles, Paris, Alabama...) |
| spatial interaction |
how things are laid how and how the people in those different places exchange ideas, goods, diseases,... or do not exchange ideas, goods, diseases... |
| distances |
the measurement of physical spaces between to points or places. |
| accessibility |
the ability for something to be gotten/achieved. the degress to which it is easily possible to get to a certain location from other locations. This varies and can be measured. |
| connectivity |
how things come together or are linked between one location and another in a transport network. |
| landscape |
a core element of geography that refers to the material character of a place, complexity of natural features, human structures, and other tangible objects that give a place a particular form. |
| cultural landscape |
the visible imprint of human activity on the landscape. (concept-- Carl Sauer, 1927, UC Berkley.) |
| sequent occupance |
Refers to the idea that as occupiers arrive they bring their own technoloy and cultural traditions & transform the landscape, but they can also be influenced by what they find when they arrive & leave some of it there. (concept- Derwent Whittlesey, 1929) |
| Cartography |
the study of maps/ map making. |
| reference maps |
show locations of palces and geographic features. |
| thematic maps |
tell storeis, usually showing the degree of some attribute or the movement of a geographic phenomenon. |
| absolute location |
latitude/longitude, coordinates, an exact location. |
| global positioning system (GPS) |
allows us to locate things on the surgace of the earth with extraordinary accuracy; researchers can collect data quickly and easily in the field. |
| mental maps |
the maps we carry in our minds of places we have been and places we have merely heard of. (ex. a mental map of your house, park, school, church, publix, etc.) |
| remote sensing |
geographers moniter the Earth's surface form a distance to understand the scope and rate of environemtnal change over short and long periods of time by satellites and aircraft (airplanes, balloons.) |
| Geographic information systems (GIS) |
geographers use this advancement in computer technology and data storage to compare a variety of spatial data by combining layers of spatial data in a computerized environment, creating maps in which patterns and processes are superimposed. |
| formal region |
a physical criteria of an area and can also be defined by cultural traits (the people share one or more cultural traits -- food, belief systems, dress, dances, hair styles, languages etc.) |
| functional region |
the product of interactions of movement of various kinds. (Ex. a city, has a surrounding region within which workers commute, either ot the downtown area to to subsidiary centers such as office parks and shopping malls -- that entire urban area.) |
| perceptual regions |
intellectual constructs designed to help us understand the nature and distribution of phenomena in human geography. (Zelinsky's article "North America's Vernacular Regions") |
| culture |
Refers to music, literature, an the arts of a society, and all other features of its way of life: dress, routine living habits, food, architecture, education, government, law, even agricultural practices. (closely associated with Anthropology.) |
| cultural trait |
a single attribute or characteristic of a culture. (ex. wearing a turban) |
| culture complex |
more than one culture may exhibit a culture trait, but each will consiste of a discrete combination of traits... (ex. herding cattle -- but it's used in different ways by different cultures. Maasai, E. Africa) |
| cultural hearth |
an area where cultural traits develop (originate) and from which the cultural traits diffuse. |
| culture diffusion |
Process where something spreads -- an idea or innovation from its hearth (source) to other places. (Carl Sauer - Agricultural Origins and Dispersals; Haegerstrand, 1970 brought in time and distance to the equation.) |
| expansion diffusion |
an idea that develops in a hearth and ramins strong there while also spreading outward. Moves without people physically moving to become "knowers" of the trait or innovation.(Ex. Islam -- Arabian Peninsula to Egypt and N. Africa, SW Asia, and W. Africa) |
| relocation diffusion |
The opposite of expansion diffusion where the actual movemnt of individuals who have already adopted the idea or innovation carry it to a new, sometimes distant locale, where they proceed to disseminate it. Usually occurs through migration. |
| contagious diffusion |
A type of expansion diffusion. A form of expansion diffusion in which nearly all adjacent individuals are affected. (a disease, a religion like Islam.) |
| hierarchical diffusion |
Ex. a new fashion or genre of music may not spread throughout a contiguous populations -- often it's hierarchical. This diffusion is a pattern where the main channel of diffusion is some segment, level, or step of those who might adopt what is diffusing. |
| stimulous diffusion |
(expan. diffuse) Some ideas to adopt are 2 vague, unattainable, or different yet these ideas have an impact & may indirectly promote local experimentation & eventual changes in ways of doing things. (ex. mass-production of food led to vegburgers in India) |
| environmental determinism |
Environmental determinism is belief that behavior (individual & collective) is affected, controlled, or determined by physical environment people live in. (Aristotle Anc.Greece). |
| possibilism |
Possibilism is that belief of the natural environment only limits choices available to a culture. |
| cultural ecology |
an area of inquiry concerned with culture as a system of adaptation to environment. |
| political ecology |
an area of inquiry fundamentally concerned with the environmental consequences of dominant political-economic arrangements and understandings. |
| density |
the frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area |
| distribution |
the arrangement of something across earth's surface |
| equator |
the imaginary line around the Earth forming the great circle that is equidistant from the north and south poles |
| latitude |
the numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0 degrees) |
| longitude |
the numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distances east and west of the prime meridian (0 degrees) |
| Mercator projection |
a type of map in which the true compass directions are kept intact (lines of latitude and longitude intersect at right angles) but areas are distorted |
| Prime Meridian |
the meridian, designated as 0 degrees longitude, that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England |
| projection |
the system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map |
| Robinson projection |
representation that reflects the spherical appearance of Earth, but like the Mercator projection, distortions occur |
| scale |
generally, the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole, specifically the relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface |
| site |
the physical character of a place |
| situation |
the location of a place relative to other places |
| toponym |
the name given to a portion of Earth's surface |
| vernacular region |
(perceptual region) an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity |
Buen Viaje lv.2 ch 8
