Transcript Chapter One Thinking Geographically 5 THEMES OF GEOGRAPHY Place Sense of place: infusing a place with meaning and emotion. Perception of place: belief or understanding of.

Chapter One
Thinking
Geographically
5 THEMES OF GEOGRAPHY
Place
Sense of place: infusing a place with
meaning and emotion.
Perception of place: belief or
understanding of what a place is like,
often based on books, movies, stories,
or pictures.
Movement
Spatial interaction: the interconnectedness
between places depends upon:
Distance
Accessibility
Connectivity
Cultural Landscape
The visible human imprint on the landscape.
Religion and
cremation
practices
diffuse with
Hindu migrants
from India to
Kenya.
Two Types of Maps:
Reference Maps
- Show locations of
places and
geographic features
- Absolute locations
Thematic Maps
- Tell a story about the
degree of an
attribute, the pattern
of its distribution, or
its movement.
- Relative locations
What are reference
maps used for?
What are thematic
maps used for?
Reference
Map
Thematic
Map
What story
about median
income in the
Washington, DC
area is this map
telling?
Mental Maps:
maps we carry in our minds of places we
have been and places we have heard of.
can see:
landmarks, paths, etc.
Activity Spaces:
the places we travel to routinely in our
rounds of daily activity.
How are activity spaces and mental maps related?
How Geographers Address
Location
• Maps
–
–
–
–
Who was the first
person to use the
word “geography?”
Early mapmaking
Map scale
Projection
U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785
• Contemporary Tools
– GIS
– Remote sensing
– GPS
Township &
Range System
in the US
CONTOUR =
TOPOGRAPHIC MAP
- Large scale map
- Quantitative representation of relief
- Natural + man-made features
-Originally used by the military to plan for
battle & defensive emplacements
-Used in architecture, mining, recreation,
urban planning, etc.
- Notice colors used
- Contour lines are curves that connect to
contiguous points of the same altitude
- V: stream valleys
- O: can show uphill or downhill
- Spacing of contours: Indicate shallow or
steep slope.
Fig. 1-4: Principal meridians & east-west baselines of the township system. Townships in northwest
Mississippi & topographic map of the area.
Principal Meridians & Baselines
U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785
Tallahatchie
River,
Mississippi
in Township
Sections
The Tallahatchie River is located in the southeast and southwest quarter-sections of
Section 32, T23N R1E.
GPS versus GIS
Global Positioning System versus
Geographic Information Systems
What can GIS do for you?
REMOTE SENSING
Remote Sensing is any technique used for measuring,
observing, or monitoring a process or object without
physically touching the object under observation.
- Use satellites orbiting the Earth or from other longdistances.
- Optical and radio telescopes, cameras, even eyesight are
types of remote sensing.
Remote Sensing:
a method of
collecting data by
instruments that are
physically distant
from the area of
study.
LARGE SCALE MAP
Scale
Differences
Maps of
Washington
State
Which is the small
scale map?
Which is the large
scale map?
* Distortion is greatest in small scale maps!
Fig. 1-3: The effects of scale in maps of Washington State. (Scales from 1:10 million to
1:10,000)
Washington State
(1:10 million scale)
Western Washington
(1:1 million scale)
Seattle Region
(1:100,000 scale)
Downtown Seattle, Washington
LARGE
SCALE MAP
(1:10,000 scale)
Scale
Scale is the territorial extent of something.
The observations we make and the
context we see vary across scales, such
as:
- local
- regional
- national
- global
Scale is a powerful concept because:
- Processes operating at different scales influence one another.
- What is occurring across scales provides context for us to understand a
phenomenon.
- People can use scale politically to change who is involved or how an issue is
perceived.
Tallahatchie River,
Mississippi
CONTOUR MAP 
A contour map has a large-scale detail and
quantitative representation of relief.
The topographic map of the U.S. Geological
Survey has a scale of 1:24,000
Uniqueness of Places & Regions
• Place: Unique location of a feature
–
–
–
–
TOPONYMS
Place names
Site
Situation
Mathematical location
• Regions: Areas of unique characteristics
–
–
–
–
–
Cultural landscape
Types of regions
Spatial association
Regional integration of culture
Cultural ecology
PLACE
What is the difference between
SITE and SITUATION?
SITE:
SITUATION:
* Describes where a
• Describes the
place is in relation to its
characteristics where a
surroundings (other
settlement is located
towns, uplands, &
• Characteristics can
rivers)
include:
* Purpose- we can
- climate
identify something from
- water sources
the land to direct people
- topography
to their desired location
- soil
- vegetation
Think about why places were
- latitude
located where they are?
- elevation
Site:
Lower
Manhattan
Island
Fig. 1-6: Site of lower Manhattan Island,
New York City. There have
been many changes to the area
over the last 200 years.
Situation: Singapore
Fig. 1-7: Singapore is situated at a key location for international trade.
Situation
Downtown Singapore
Downtown Singapore is situated near where the Singapore River
flows into the Singapore Strait.
Perception
of Place
Where Pennsylvanian
students prefer to live
Where Californian
students prefer to live
World Geographic Grid
•What are
minutes?
•What are
seconds?
Fig. 1-8: The world geographic grid consists of meridians of longitude and parallels of
latitude. The prime meridian ( 0º) passes through Greenwich, England.
•How are
time zones
calculated?
World Time Zones
•Names of
the US time
zones
•Explain how
time zones
change
(E,W)
•International
Date Line +
significance
Fig. 1-9: The world’s 24 standard time zones each represent about 15° of longitude. They are
often depicted using the Mercator projection.
REGIONS:
- Vernacular or Perceptual Region
- Formal Region
- Functional or Nodal Region
VERNACULAR REGION
or Perceptual Region:
FUNCTIONAL REGION
(or Nodal Region):
-
•Region that has a defined node
or center
EX. Metropolitan area of Chicago
-
Defied loosely defined by people's
perception
Ideas in our minds, based on
accumulated knowledge of places
and regions, that define an area of
“sameness” or “connectedness.”
EX. The South
The Midwest
The Middle East
FORMAL REGION:
- An area where everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics
- Can be defined by governmental or administrative boundaries
EX. United States, German speaking regions in Europe
- Physical regions fall under this category
EX. The Rockies, the Great Lakes States
Formal and Functional Regions
Fig. 1-11: The state of Iowa is an example of a formal region; the areas of influence
of various television stations are examples of functional regions.
Vernacular Regions
Fig. 1-12: A number of features are often used to define the South as a vernacular region,
each of which identifies somewhat different boundaries.
9 or more regions within the United States!
The meanings of regions are often contested. In Montgomery,
Alabama, streets named after Confederate President Jefferson Davis
and Civil Rights leader Rosa Parks intersect.
Photo credit: Jonathan Leib
World Climate Regions
Fig. 1-14: The modified Köppen system divides the world into five main climate regions.
Environmental
Modification in
the
Netherlands
Polders – piece of land created
by draining water from an area
Fig. 1-15: Polders and dikes have been used for extensive environmental modification in
the Netherlands.
Environmental
Modification in
Florida
Fig. 1-16: Straightening the Kissimmee River has had many unintended side effects.
C-38 Canal
Florida
The canal has carried water with
agricultural runoff and pollution
into Lake Okeechobee
** Similarity of Different Places
• Scale: From local to global
– Globalization of economy
– Globalization of culture
• Space: Distribution of features
– Distribution
• Connections between places
– Spatial association
– Diffusion
Globalization
A set of processes that
are:
- increasing interactions
- deepening relationships
- heightening
interdependence
A set of outcomes that
are:
- unevenly distributed
- varying across scales
- differently manifested
without regard to
country borders.
throughout the world.
GLOBALIZATION
POLITICAL
CARTOON
Globalization of the Economy
Fig. 1-17: The Denso corporation (automobile parts manufacturer) is headquartered in
Japan, but it has regional headquarters and other facilities in North
America and Western Europe.
GLOBALIZATION 
Transnational (multinational) Companies
• They invest in foreign operations, central corporate facility, conduct
research + development, operate factories & market products
- not just where their headquarters + primary shareholders exist
Globalization of Culture
SPACE:
Distribution:
Density,
Concentration, &
Pattern
•DISTRIBUTION:
•DENSITY
- arithmetic density – how?
•CONCENTRATION
- clustered
- dispersed
•PATTERN
Fig. 1-18: The density, concentration, and
pattern (of houses in this example)
may vary in an area or landscape.
Spatial distribution
What processes create and sustain the pattern of a distribution?
Map of Cholera Victims
in London’s Soho District
in 1854.
The patterns of victim’s
homes and water pump
locations helped uncover
the source of the disease.
Density and Concentration of
Baseball Teams, 1952 & 2007
Fig. 1-19: The changing distribution of North American baseball teams illustrates
the differences between density and concentration.
U.S. Baseball Teams, 1952
Fig. 1-19: Baseball teams were highly concentrated in the Northeast and
Midwest in 1952.
U.S. Baseball Teams, 2007
Fig. 1-19: By 2007, U.S. baseball teams were much more dispersed than in 1952,
and their number and density at a national level had increased.
Diffusion
• “process by which molecules travel
from a higher concentration to a lower
concentration”
TYPES OF DIFFUSION
• Expansion Diffusion – idea or innovation spreads
outward from the hearth
• Contagious – spreads adjacently + rapidly
• Hierarchical – spreads to most linked people or places first.
• Stimulus – idea promote a local experiment or change in the
way people do things.
* Relocation Diffusion – spread of an idea through
physical movement of people from one place to
another
Expansion Diffusion
•Contagious
•Hierarchical
•Stimulus
Relocation Diffusion
Stimulus
Diffusion
Because Hindus believe cows are
holy, cows often roam the streets in
villages and towns. The McDonalds
restaurants in India feature veggie
burgers.
Example of Relocation Diffusion
Paris, France
Kenya
Photo credit: H.J. de Blij
Photo credit: A.B. Murphy
HEARTH
* The source area of any innovation. The source area from which an idea,
crop, artifact, or good is diffused to other areas.
Old Approaches to Human-Environment Questions:
• Environmental Determinism
--> physical environment causes social development
- has been rejected by almost all geographers
• Possibilism
 physical environment limits human actions, but that people have the
ability to adjust to the physical environment
- less accepted today
New Approaches to Human-Environment Questions:
• Cultural ecology
 explores the relationship between a given society and its natural
environment
• Political ecology
 studies how political, economic, and social factors affect environmental
issues.