Geographic Concepts

Unit OneMs. Taylor’s Human Geography

Geographic terms

Scale

• The relationship between a portion of the earth you are looking at and the Earth as a whole.

• The smaller the scale, the larger the area covered (eg. Globe = small scale representation of the earth. Map of CSS campus = larger scale)

Place

• A specific point on Earth identified by a unique location (described by its place name, site, situation, or mathematical location)

Toponym (place name)

Situation (relative location)

• “We’re the house situated next to the one with all the funky statues, near the entrance to Cheyenne Canyon.” (Helps find an unfamiliar place)

• Chipotle’s situation so close to Cheyenne Mountain HS and CSS guarantees a brisk lunchtime visit. (Helps illustrate importance)

Mathematical Location

• Latitude• Longitude• Township and range coordinates (Land

Ordinance of 1785)

What is the location of CSS?

• Using toponyms• Situationally speaking• Describe the site• Mathematical locationhttp://www.findlatitudeandlongitude.com/find-address-from-latitude-and-longitude.php

Region

• Area distinguished by distinctive physical and/or cultural characteristics.

• Examples: The American South; the Rocky Mountain West; Southern California; the Northwest; the Midwest; Africa; the Middle East

Formal Region

• Also called uniform or homogenous region• An area in which everyone shares one or more

distinctive characteristic. (e.g. states, countries)

• Or in which one characteristic dominates all others (Red: Republican vs. Blue (Democrat) states, wheat belt or “breadbasket”

Functional Region

• Also “nodal” regions• Organized around a “node” or focal point—

center of service, circulation, or “hub”• Eg. Newspaper circulation

Vernacular Region

• Also called “perceptual region” • A place people believe exists as part of their

cultural identity• Name often evokes clear pictures or

stereotypes: “Dixie” or “the South,” “The North Country”

• Not formal geographic region

Space

• Physical gap or between two objects• How much space is there between you and

your neighbor? • How are the buildings on the CSS campus

distributed across space?• Population across a given space gives you

density

Map Scale

• The relationship between a distance on a map, chart, or photograph, and the corresponding distance on the Earth.

• How do we know how far distances are from A to B on any given map?

• Why does a map of Colorado take up the same amount of paper as a map of Rhode Island?

Map scale: graphic

Graphic and Ratio Scales

Map Scale: Written

• “One inch equals a mile”• “One centimeter equals 1000 kilometers”

Connections

• “relationships among people and things across space”

• Examples: language ties, commercial connections, travel, common religions, the Internet

Global Positioning System (GPS)

• Uses satellites to reference location on the ground place in orbit by U.S. military

• Navigation tool (planes, motorists, geocachers)

• Tracking device (parents of errant adolescents)

• www.OpenStreetMap.org

Geographic Information System (GIS)

• Computer can store, manipulate, layer geographic information

• “Mashups” layers of various data sets• Highly pragmatic, flexible• Real Estate Applications: Zillowhttp://www.zillow.com/homes/80906_rb/#/homes/Southwest-Colorado-Springs-Colorado-Springs-CO-80906/93584_rid/38.872116,-104.612716,38.681548,-105.085128_rect/10_zm/

• What kind of a mash-up would you like to create and for what purpose?

Remote Sensing

• Using satellites that transmit digital data to s receiving station on earth in pixels (based on radiation emitted from tiny area on Earth).

• For true geeks, check out this NASA tutorial! (• http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Hi. I’m Mundo.

Did you know that how we

“see” the world depends on how we project the

world?

Sometimes our point of view creates some interesting distortions….

South America

Africa

The Earth is a sphere. Therefore, it cannot be projected on a flat map

without distortion. The question is, which kind of distortion?

Map Projections

--Distortions inevitable: have to decide what aspects are most important to preserve: distance, shape, direction, area, and proximity--Match the projection with task at hand

General classes of map projections

Planar, cylindrical, and conical transfers or projections

Conical, oval, and cylindrical

Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594)Frontispiece to Mercator's Atlas sive Cosmographicae, 1585-1595. Courtesy of the Library of

Congress, Rare Book Division, Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection.

Mercator

On a Mercator projection, invented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, any straight line is a line of constant compass bearing.

This enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.

Interrupted Goode’s Homolosine

Robinson Projection

Sinusoidal interrupted mapThree “lobes” per hemisphere

Three-lobe sinusoidal map

Nine lobe sinusoidal map

Star-shaped projection by German Hermann Berghaus, 1879.

Peters Projection (1970’s)

Three World Map ProjectionsMercator, Peters, and Robinson

Despite the values of theMercator Projection, itdistorts the size and shapeof land areas.

Fact: South America is 8 times as large as Greenland.

Fact: Africa is 14 times as large as Greenland.

The Peters Projection is an“equal area” map. It represents areas accurately,but it seriously distorts shapes.

Compare the size of Europe to Africa on the two maps.

Compare the size of the former USSR to China on the two maps.

http://youtu.be/n8zBC2dvERM

What is culture?

(a partial list)Religion | Language | Architecture | Cuisine |

Technology | Music Dance | Sports | Medicine | Dress | Gender roles

| Law Education | Government | Agriculture | Economy

| Sport | GroomingValues | Work ethic | Etiquette | Courtship |

Recreation | Gestures

What elements of culture do you see in these photos?

“Culture is what people care about enough to take care of and preserve.”

What else would you include in your definition of culture?

Cultural Ecology

• The geographic study of human-environment relationships

• Environmental determinism vs. “possibilism” • What elements of Colorado or US or your

home country appear to be environmentally determined?

Climate Regions

• Tropical • Dry• Warm mid-latitude• Cold mid-latitude• Polar

Biomes

• Forest• Savannah• Grassland• Desert (not to be confused with dessert!)

What is Globalization?

Some images to consider…http://www.globalization101.org/index.html

What is being globalized? • Economy?• Trade?• Fashion? • Language? • Values? • Food?• Music?

• Environmental degradation?

Whose….?

Distribution

• Density – How many _____s per square mile?

• Concentration– Are things distributed in a manner that is

dispersed, or clustered? • Pattern– What is the geometric arrangement of objects in

space? Regular (like a grid)?– Irregular (random, lack or regular pattern)?

US Population Density 2006

Legend: US Population Density• Legend, light to dark (white to dark blue):• 0-1 (white)• 1-4 (yellow)• 5-9 (yellow-green)• 10-24 (green)• 25-49 (teal)• 50-99 (dark teal)• 100-249 (blue)• 250-66,995 (dark blue)• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA-2000-population-

density.gif

Distribution of Hybrid Cars

Connections

• Space-time compression: the decrease in time it takes for something to get from Point A to Point B (consider the mail via Pony Express vs. the mail by airplane; travel to Europe by ship vs. travel by jet)

• How does space time compression relate to globalization?

Connections (cont’d)

– Distance decay: the decrease in contact (and eventual cessation) between two locales as distance between them increases.

– How much contact do residents in the following cities have? What is the nature of that contact, and how do you explain it using the idea of distance decay?• Colorado Springs/Denver• Denver/Boulder• Colorado Springs/Boulder

Diffusion

•Relocation vs. Expansion• hearth=point of origin from which things

(people, ideas, material objects, trends) spread

• Can you identify the hearth of the following diffusions?