Download The 5 Themes of Geography

The 5 Themes of Geography
Theme 1: Location
2 Types
-Absolute Location: A specific place on the earth’s surface. An address or latitude and
longitude coordinate.
Example: North Carolina
36˚ N Latitude
79˚ W Longitude
Latitude and Longitude
►The
earth is divided into lots of lines
called latitude and longitude.
longitude.
-Relative Location: Where a place is in relation to another place. When describing the relative
location of a place, you would use directional words such as near, close to,
north/south/east/west of, about 2 blocks away from, etc.
Example: North Carolina is bordered by South Carolina to the south, Virginia to the
north, Tennessee to the west.
My house is a 2 blocks away from Baptist Hospital.
Theme 2: Place
A. Physical characteristics that make a place different or unique.
 Land features
 Hills, plateaus
 Climate
 Bodies of water
Example: North Carolina has mountains, beaches, lakes, hot summers, Moderate winter
temperatures.
B. Human characteristics that are associated with that place.
 People
 Culture
 Religion
 Language
 Cities
 Landmarks
Example:
 The RJR building is a landmark associated with the Winston Salem skyline.
 Old Salem is a museum that preserves the Moravian traditions and culture, because the
early Moravian people played an important part in establishing Winston Salem.
 Tanglewood Park has a yearly tradition of putting on a huge Christmas light display. They
also have a chilli cook-off, because chilli is a food that many people in the area enjoy.
 Thousands of people go to the Tanglewood Festival of Lights every year because Winston
Salem is largely made up of Christians who celebrate Christmas as part of their religious
faith.
Theme 3: Human Environment Interaction
How people interact with their environment
 Adapting to the environment
 Modifying the environment (in positive and negative ways)
 Depending on the environment
Example:
Many people in the coastal region of NC interact with the environment in the following ways…
 Opening businesses such as hotels, theme parks, fishing piers, putt-putt courses, which
rely on tourists who come for the warm, sunny summer climate, beaches and ocean.
 Fishermen, who fish the waters for shrimp, fish, etc.
 Sea turtle preservation groups patrol the beaches to make sure no one uses flashlights at
night, because they can lead the baby sea turtles toward the dunes instead of the ocean.
They are protecting sea turtles, which are an endangered species, and are part of their
environment.
Theme 4: Movement
Movement of people, goods and ideas
Example:
People move in many ways…
 Walking, driving, flying, boats, bicycles, mopeds, etc.
People move goods in many of the same ways, but sometimes on a larger scale…
Transfer trucks move goods to grocery stores, hardware stores, etc. The cartons that
transfer trucks move along the highways are often moved across the country by trains.
Ideas are moved in many different ways…
 At TJMS we use Alert Now to move our information from school to homes…”Hello this is
Brad Royal..”
 In Winston Salem many ideas are moved by the Winston Salem Journal and The Chronicle
 When it snows, the school system uses WXII to move that information into your home so
that you can go back to bed

Theme 5: Regions
 Political
 Physical
 Agricultural
 Cultural
Regions are created by people to more easily define places that share similar characteristics.
Example:
Political Regions
 Countries, states, cities, counties, towns are political regions. They are similar because
they have a shared government
Physical Regions
 The Appalachian Mountains are a mountain region
 The Sahara Desert is a desert region
 The Pacific Coast is a coastal region
Agricultural Regions
 Soybeans: Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana,
Minnesota, South Dakota, Louisiana and Nebraska
 Dairy: California, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont
 Corn and Wheat: Midwestern states
Cultural Regions
 Cultural regions are a result of mixed cultures, languages, accents, attitudes, music,
traditions
o We live in the southern cultural region, which is often characterized by things
such as
 Music: jazz, blues, country
 Rural communities
 Love of storytelling and oral tradition
 Conservative political beliefs and values
*When describing cultural regions, we have to be conscious of whether the associations are real or just the result
of stereotypes that are commonly believed to exist, but are really just a result of narrow thinking.