APHG Unit 1 Introduction to Human Geography Spatial

APHG Unit 1: Introduction to Human Geography

Spatial Perspective • Human geographers study space on the earth’s surface and investigating the patterns within it. WHAT? HOW? WHY?

Geographic inquiry focuses on the spatial: - the spatial arrangement of places and phenomena (human and physical). - how are things organized on Earth? - how do they appear on the landscape? - why? where? so what?

Five Themes of Geography 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Location Human Environment Interaction Region Place Movement

Location • Concerned with analyzing where something is on the earth’s surface and how it effects human life 1. Absolute Location- latitude and longitude; street address 2. Relative Location- the location of a place in relation to the places around it; Jacksonville is in northeast Florida

Absolute Location Latitude • Equator is 0 degrees latitude • North Pole is 90 degrees north • South Pole is 90 degrees south • Latitude lines are referred to as parallels • Latitude measures distance north to south

Latitude

Longitude • Prime Meridian is 0 degrees longitude • International dateline is 180 longitude • Lines of longitude are referred to has meridians and measure east to west • Longitude lines are used to measure to create time zones. Every 15 degrees the time zone changes for many areas (China maintains one time zone for the entire country).

Longitude

Time Zone Map

Relative Location • A place’s relative location can change if the surroundings of the place change • Site- refers to a place’s internal physical and cultural characteristics, such as terrain and dominant religions – Example: Sarasota, Florida has sandy beaches, Catholic Churches, and humid climate

• Situation- refers to the location of a place relative to the physical and cultural characteristics around it – Ex: The more interconnected a place is with other powerful places, the better its situation

Site Situation

Human-Environment Interaction • Many times referred to as cultural ecology • Geographers study 1. How human activities affect their environment 2. How environmental changes impact human life 3. The positive and negative effects of humanenvironment interactions

Old Approaches to Human-Environment Questions: • Environmental Determinism - argued that human activities are controlled by their environment • Possibilism - Suggests that humans’ natural environments present a set of choices from which humans choose their actions

Region • Spatial units that share some similar characteristics • Geographers create regions to help classify and understand the complexity of the earth • Three types of boundaries: 1. Formal 2. Functional 3. Perceptual

Formal Regions • Uniform Regions • Areas that contain common physical or cultural features • Examples 1. 2. 3. 4. A country Areas linked by a shared government Climate region Group of places sharing a common religion

Functional Region • Nodal region • Places linked together by some function’s influence on them • Often the influence diffuses from node (originating point) • Created through movement of some phenomenon

• Examples 1. Pizza delivery routes 2. Newspaper delivery routes 3. Delta Airline flights out of its hub of Atlanta, GA

Perceptual Regions • • Vernacular Regions Boundaries are determined by people’s beliefs Different from person to person Examples 1. The South in the U. S. 2. Regions of a city 3. Middle East

Place • Unique combination of physical and cultural characteristics that give each location on the earth its individuality • Cultural components of place include – Religion – Language – Politics – Artwork

• Physical components of place include – Climate – Terrain – Natural resources • Sense of Place- person’s perception or belief about the characteristics of a location that make it unique • Influences on sense of place: smells, sounds, images, books, movies, and interactions with others

Movement • Geographers study the movement of information, people, goods, etc… occurring in a space – Movement of people = migration – Movement of ideas, info = diffusion • Spatial interaction- how places interact through movement • Friction of distance- the degree to which distance interferes with some interaction between places

Types of Diffusion 1. Expansion Diffusion – idea or innovation spreads outward from the hearth • Contagious – spreads adjacently • Hierarchical – spreads to most linked people or places first. • Stimulus – idea promotes a local experiment or change in the way people do things.

• Time-space compression (space-time compression)- increase in accessibility and connectivity to bring humans in distant places closer together through advances in technology • Distance decay- Interaction between two places decreases as the distance increases

Connectedness Diffusion: the process of dissemination, the spread of an idea or innovation from its hearth to other areas. What slows/prevents diffusion? - time-distance decay - cultural barriers

Mapmaking • Cartography the process of mapmaking • Cartographer- one who makes maps • Data aggregation- the size of geographic units being represented on a map • Distortion- error resulting from the flattening process • Four main map properties: shape, size, distance, and direction – All four can not be accurately represented so the cartographer chooses which to distort

Concepts and Skills continued… • Mental/cognitive maps- maps drawn from a person’s memory; mental maps can help a geographer understand certain traits of various cultures • Scale means two things: 1. The relationship between distance on a map and the actual real world measurement 2. Scope of geographic inquiry; what area are you studying? Local, national, regional, or global

Scale

Categories of Maps • Reference Maps show common features such as boundaries, roads, highways, mountains, and cities. • Thematic Maps focus on one feature such as climate, city size, or number of churches – Isoline thematic maps – Choropleth thematic map – Proportional symbol thematic map – Dot Density Maps – Cartogram

Geography and Technology 1. GIS (geographical information system)computer program that stores geographic data and produces maps to show that data

2. Remote sensing- collection of information from satellites and distant collection systems

3. GPS (global positioning system) uses satellites to determine exact locations on the global grid

Culture is an all-encompassing term that identifies not only the whole tangible lifestyle of peoples, but also their prevailing values and beliefs. - cultural trait - cultural complex - cultural hearth

New Approaches to the Human. Environment Questions • Cultural ecology - the study of a human group’s interaction with its natural environment + • Political ecology - the study of cultural geography through the lens of the relationships government an economic systems create between human cultures and their environments