Download I. AP Human Geography Summer Reading Assignment In advance

I.
AP Human Geography Summer Reading Assignment In advance of beginning your first Advanced Placement course this coming fall, we ask for you to complete an assignment related to the introductory unit of this course. Part of the assignment is included in this packet. However, you will need to purchase the Kaplan AP Human Geography Review Book (available online at Amazon.com for approximately $10 +shipping—as seen here: http://www.amazon.com/Kaplan‐AP‐Human‐Geography‐
2011/dp/1607145324/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337794472&sr=8‐1). You do not, however, have to have the latest version—2010 or newer versions will all work well just fine for the completion of this assignment. As long as you follow the directions which are clearly outlined in the attached packet, you should be just fine. Should you have any questions regarding the assignment, please feel free to contact Mr. Hein, or Mr. Johnston, and one of us will get back to you as soon as possible ([email protected], [email protected])  Read the “Geography Standards” packet that follows and complete the reading guide questions as you go.  Next, read “Geography: Its Nature & Perspectives” in your Kaplan Review Book. In most editions of the book this is chapter three (3). Please complete the summaries handout while reading through the chapter.  Finally, be prepared for a unit test to be administered during the first week of school. This test will cover both the Geography Standards and “Nature & Perspectives” portions of the summer reading assignment. Geography Standard One: Students will develop a personal geographic framework, or “mental map,” and understand the uses of maps and other geo‐graphics [maps]. Part I Have you ever been to our nation’s capital, Washington D.C.? If you have, you probably saw the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, and the area between them known as the National Mall. Since you made it back to where you are now, we can assume that you did not get too lost. Likely, you or someone with you used a map. 7th St.
National Mall
Washington
Monument
The Capitol Building
When you use a map as a guide, what you are doing is translating real objects on the ground (top aerial map) into symbols or icons (bottom map) and then observing the relative placement of these objects in reference to where you are located. You can read a map without actually visiting the area, of course. Maps are usually on flat paper and in two‐dimensional, or 2D form. Yet our earth is a three‐dimensional, or 3D sphere. Humans have decided to make maps on paper because that makes it easier to transfer and reproduce. When people change or convert a globe (3D) surface into a flat map (2D), they have made a projection (map). However, when mapmakers make this conversion they distort either the shapes or sizes of earth’s land. Moving a 3D Globes are Globe to a 2D made into maps piece of paper because they cannot be done are bulky and without not easy to distortion. carry. Mapmakers decide how to distort, or warp, the earth in their projections. This is why some maps of the world look very different from others. Some cartographers, or mapmakers, choose to distort, or alter, shapes of continents, but keep their sizes correct. Peter’s Projection shown directly below is an example of this. Other maps choose to distort sizes of continents more and keep accurate shapes of the land. Mercator’s Projection of the world shown at the bottom of the page is an example of this. Both maps are correct, but each projection distorts the world differently. Peter’s Projection (map) of the world 2. Russia in Peter’s looks a lot smaller than in Mercator’s Projection. 1. Look how much bigger Greenland is in Mercator’s Projection of the world than in Peter’s Projection. Mercator’s map has the correct shape for Greenland, but it has been made to look much bigger than Australia. In fact, Australia is 3.5 times larger than Greenland. This happened because Mercator’s Map greatly distorts the size of land further away from the  Define the bolded words from the text in the chart below: TERM DEFINE Map Projection 3. Africa and South America look a lot smaller in Mercator’s Projection. Many people think this is unfair to them. Mercator’s Projection (map) of the world Distort Cartographer  What steps do you think are important to reading and comprehending a map?  Why don’t all maps look the same? Part II Imagine what a map of Delaware would look like. Where are the beaches? Where is Dover, our state’s capital, and where is our largest city, Wilmington? What you have just done is looked at your mental map of Delaware. A mental map is your picture of a part or all of the Earth’s surface. You have mental maps of your school, your home, your state, and even of the world. Some people have better mental maps than others have and do not get lost as often. Luckily, a person’s mental map improves over time. Below are some basics that any good mental map of Delaware should include. Delaware shares borders with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. It is a mostly flat state on the eastern seaboard of the United States. It is part of the Delmarva Peninsula. A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on three sides. Delaware is part of a peninsula because it is between the Delaware Bay, Atlantic Ocean, and the Chesapeake Bay. Delaware has only three counties. From north to south they are New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. Dover is the state capital, but Wilmington is the largest city. People with good mental maps know the relative location of places in their mental maps. Relative location tells where one place is in comparison to another place. On the other hand, absolute location gives an exact location using longitude and latitude. When people tell each other where they live, they rarely use absolute location. Instead, they describe where they live in relation to a better‐known landmark. For example, people would likely say where they live in relation to other well‐known landmarks like People’s Plaza, Dover Air Force Base, or Bethany Beach. Looking at the map above left, Dover is relatively closer to Rehoboth Beach than Newark, so people in Dover might be able to get there in an hour, as opposed to two hours for most people in Newark. A person is really good at mental maps when they can link all their mental maps of different scales together. Try to imagine your mental map of Delaware. Now zoom out to your mental map of the United States. Can you zoom into a mental map of Florida, can you then zoom back out to see just the states bordering the Atlantic Ocean? Can you then zoom out to the entire world? Once you can accurately do this, you have become proficient in Mental Maps.  In the box below, draw your own mental map of Delaware:  Explain the difference between absolute and relative location: Part III The world as a whole is becoming more and more connected. For example, it’s likely that most of the clothes you are now wearing were made in a different country. It is likely that your future job will have you interacting with people from all over the world. Because of this increased global connection, a well‐developed mental map of the world is becoming increasingly important. The continents of the world are broken up into smaller sections or sub‐regions, as seen in the map below. You should be familiar with the world’s sub‐regions and their relative locations. Take a few moments to look over the sub‐regions below. When you are familiar with the sub‐regions of the world, you can easily make connections between places. For example, to travel between Western Europe and Southern Europe, you would likely be able to take a train. To travel from East Africa to Central America, you would most likely fly. Similarly, clothes leaving China in East Asia would likely be shipped across the Pacific Ocean, but would travel by train to Eastern Europe. Below are just a few of the locations of many major physical features, or landforms, of planet earth that you should be familiar with. Rocky Mountains Appalachian Mountains Amazon River and Rainforest Andes Mountains Alps Mountains Sahara Desert Himalayan Mountains Nile River Indian Ocean
 How can sub‐regions help us to understand connections and differences between places around the world? (For example, Eastern vs. Western Europe)  Why is it important to know and understand major physical features of the world? Part IV Maps contain data or information organized and presented to you in terms of where things are located. When this information or data is mapped, certain patterns emerge. Maps of cities show distinct patterns of a hierarchy. A hierarchy is a ranking system. To understand hierarchy, first think of a school. How many principals does your school have? Likely, it has one. How many vice or assistant principals? Likely, it has a few. How many teachers and custodians? Likely, likely it has a couple dozen. How many students? Likely, it has several hundred. Notice how at each level there are more and more people. Notice how each person has less and less school‐wide authority as there are more people in his/her level. The pattern above is known as a hierarchy. Now let’s take this idea of a hierarchy and apply it to maps. The map of East Asian cities below shows an urban hierarchy or a hierarchy of cities. There are only a few extremely large cities at the top of the hierarchy such as Tokyo and Seoul. These primate cities, at least twice as large as their country’s next city, are supported in the hierarchy by smaller, yet still large cities such as Kolkata, Manila, and Shanghai. These cities are then surrounded and linked to very many medium cities and then by even more small cities at the bottom of the hierarchy. Roads, trade connections, communication networks, and social links form a web that holds the hierarchy together. The bottom of a hierarchy always has the most units. There are many more students in a school hierarchy than all the other groups. Likewise, there are many more smaller cities on an urban hierarchy than large cities. The tops of the hierarchies are the principal of the school, or the largest cities such as Tokyo and Seoul. Even though some units, like principals and primate cities, are higher up in the hierarchy than other units, such as students and small cities, all units of a hierarchy need each other. Without principals, custodians, and teachers, schools would not be able to function. However, without students, there would be no schools at all. With an urban hierarchy, small cities need big cities. In fact, all units of a hierarchy need big cities for things such as sports teams, and job centers. On the other hand, large cities rely on smaller cities to provide a market for goods, a work force, and support services. Rural (farming) areas near the cities provide fresh food while suburban areas provide housing for workers. Even the mighty New York City would be nothing without the thousands of farms to feed it. This idea of all areas in a hierarchy needing each other is called interdependence.  Put these cities in their correct places in the hierarchy pyramid: -Wilmington, DE
-New York City, NY
-Bear, DE
 Label where you believe URBAN, SUBURBAN, AND RURAL areas would be in the map below: Part V Accessibility is another pattern found when mapping. Accessibility is a measurement of how easily one place can be reached from other places. Building a road between two places would make them more accessible, but a natural barrier such as a mountain range between two cities would make the cities less accessible, or harder to travel between. If you own a Six Flags amusement park, you want your park to be easily accessible to as many people as possible. That is why all Six Flags are located near major cities such as New York and Atlanta, so that they are easily accessible for large numbers of people and can therefore make money. A hospital is another facility that you would want to be highly accessible so that it can help is many people as possible. That’s why most hospitals are built near major highways. The map to the right shows routes for Amtrak trains in the United States. From Philadelphia, Boston is a lot more accessible than Tulsa because it is closer, and there is a direct train route between Boston and Philadelphia, so travel is quick, easy, and relatively inexpensive Because Boston is more accessible, Philadelphians trade more with Boston than with Tulsa. Tulsa
 Why do think Chicago has a higher level of accessibility than Tulsa? Part VI Location has an effect on how much people interact with each other. For example, you likely know and say hello to your immediate neighbors, but you are less likely do the same to all the people who live over a ten‐minute walk from where you live. Generally, the farther away two places are found, the less likely the inhabitants are to exchange goods, information or ideas, or influence each other. Complementarity is the term geographers use to compare the levels of interaction. Although complementarity is not a word used everyday, its meaning of being a measurement of attraction or interaction between people in various places, is easy to understand. Places that are more accessible to each other have higher complementarity. New York and Delaware have higher complementarity than do Delaware and California because Delaware and New York are closer and more accessible to each other. People and firms in New York and Delaware interact and trade more. Delawareans likely love more (or hate more) the sports teams of New York such as the Giants because they interact with them more. Canada is the United States’ largest trading partner because the two countries are so close and accessible. Similarly, Canadians interact more with Americans and listen to similar music because the two countries have high complementarity or interaction.  Which pair of cities would have the highest level of interaction? Chicago‐Detroit or Chicago‐Miami. Explain why. Part VII Diffusion is another pattern found when mapping. Diffusion basically means that goods, things, and ideas move in various directions and at various speeds. If you were to spray perfume in your class, the smell would diffuse throughout the room so that eventually everyone would be able to smell it. At first, the people closest to the spray would smell it, and then eventually people farther away would. The smell might be diffused at different speeds based on the direction of the spray and if there was any wind. A sickness such as the flu might diffuse through a community. Ideas or information can diffuse throughout a population by word of mouth, newspapers, and the Internet. Inventions such as the printing press and the Internet have rapidly increased the rate of diffusion of information. News stories can now be sent from the United States to Japan by email in just a matter of moments, while in the past it would take substantially longer for information to diffuse from the United States to Japan. The map below shows the diffusion or spread of the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague throughout Europe in the mid‐
1300’s. The plague was carried on fleas and was diffused throughout Europe on the backs of small rodents. Wherever there were rodents, the fleas went, too. Often rodents would travel on ships and get off wherever the ship docked, helping diffuse the plague. The plague was extremely deadly and killed roughly 40% of Europe’s population in just four years. The key shows the diffusion of the Black Plague by year. The lines are rarely straight because the plague diffused at different rates and in different directions. Using the key, you can tell that areas such as Constantinople and Athens were hit earliest by the plague, and that the plague diffused to the west towards Italy from there.
A lot of distance between the lines representing year of the plague means that the plague diffused quickly in that area and could cover more ground.  What is another word for diffusion? Part VIII Society has many problems. For example, not every American has access to healthcare, education, or the Internet. Even in the United States, many people are not able to go see a doctor when they are gravely ill. Officials often use maps to address and solve these societal problems. For example, geographers map data that shows the number of AIDS/HIV cases in the various zip codes of Delaware to understand the epidemic more. By using this mapped information that reveals where AIDS/HIV is most prevalent, politicians know where to locate a clinic that can help the most AIDS patients. The maps might even explain how AIDS is spreading, and show where to take preventive measures. In England during the mid‐1800’s there was an outbreak of Cholera in London which left hundreds of people sick, and dozens of people dead. Many scientists tried to solve the problem by answering why the disease was killing people. However, the problem was not solved until John Snow used maps to answer WHERE the Cholera was coming from. Snow did so by mapping data of Cholera deaths. Snow made the map below to solve the Cholera outbreak by finding out where the source of the Cholera was by mapping Cholera Deaths. After mapping his data, it became obvious to Snow that the vast majority of Cholera Deaths were located around the water pump on Broad Street. Officials quickly replaced the water pump and the epidemic ended. The level of interaction or complementarity between the people here and the Broad Street Pump was high because it was the closest pump and most accessible to them. The People here would rather use this water pump than the infected Broad Street Pump because of its accessibility. This kept them healthy. The map indicates the diffusion of the cholera originated at the Broad Street pump. The more numerous deaths within 50 yards of the pump compared to the fewer deaths 150 yards from the pump is an example of hierarchy. Although not as deadly as cholera, everywhere you look there are problems, and chances are, maps can be used as an effective tool in finding solutions. Here are some examples:  Where should an expansion team for a sports league be located?  What is the best location for a new shopping mall, senior center, or playground?  What might be the source of industrial pollution in a river or stream?  How can traffic congestion in the downtown area be managed?  Which area of the country will likely need the most flu vaccine?  How can a company reach the most potential customers with TV advertising?  How could looking at mapped data help a geographer research crime rates in their local city? Geography Standard Three: Students will develop an understanding of the diversity of human culture and the unique natures of places. Part I You are unique…just like everyone else. Although this may sound like a joke, when you think about it, you, the reader, really are a unique person. What makes you unique is your makeup and character, and these are mostly determined by two factors. The first factor is the physical features of your body such as your age, height, weight, gender, and race. The second is the environment in which you grew up in and the relationships you have had with other people. For example, if you have had someone you respect tell you often about the importance of academic success, you will be more inclined to do your best in school. To some extent, we are products of our environment or landscape, the physical and human features of a place. Like people, places have their own unique makeup and character. For example, New York City is a very different place from the Sahara Desert in North Africa. Just as humans having physical features, so do places. While the physical features for people might include gender and height, physical features like hilly terrain, dry climate, or red soil help to make a place unique. The physical features of a place are called the site. Every site has a unique combination of physical environmental conditions such as climate, landforms, soils, and vegetation. Can you think of examples of places where the physical landscape is very distinct, even unforgettable? In a similar way, the surroundings of a place also affect and influence it. How close or far away are other cities? Are natural resources available near‐by? Location and interaction relative to all others places is called situation. Studying the site and also the situation of a place helps us understand what makes a place unique. For different purposes, such as farming and trade, some places have better site and situation than do other places. The right combination of site and situation can lead to prosperity or economic success for businesses in a place, while the wrong combination can put people and businesses there at a disadvantage. Wilmington’s excellent situation has helped it grow and prosper. Wilmington is situated along the major highway of I95 and is situated between Baltimore and Philadelphia. Its situation between two major cities has increased Wilmington’s trade. Wilmington’s site is next to the Delaware River. The Delaware River gives easy access to Philadelphia, to the C&D Canal, and to the Atlantic. This makes Wilmington’s situation excellent for transporting goods made in Wilmington to other locations and for importing goods to distribute to other places. Site = The Physical Characteristics of a place. Situation = How a place is positioned in relation to other places and surroundings.  How are site characteristics different from situation characteristics?  Name 2 site characteristics and 2 situation characteristics of your home: 2 SITE 2 SITUATION Part II Places and settlements differ by size and what happens or functions there. For example, cities are larger and more complex than towns, and towns are larger and more complex than villages. Similarly, cities have more specialized jobs than towns and villages. Some places have functions unique to them. For example, Washington, D.C. is a city, but it has the specialized function of being our nation’s capital. No other city has the special meeting places, monuments and office facilities needed for this unique function. Besides differing in size and function, places also vary by culture such as house design, dress, language, or food. If you want a cheese steak, go to Philadelphia, for barbecue, go to Decatur, Alabama. Although different, no place exists in complete isolation. Through trade, travel, and communication, places interact and are influenced by other places. Newark Delaware, and Dewey Beach, Delaware, are two different places. But Newark and Dewey interact. Newark residents often go to the beach for vacation, and Dewey residents often come to Newark to attend the University of Delaware. Because places do not exist in isolation, places change. For example, Delaware is different now than what it was thirty years ago because of the thousands of immigrants from places like Puerto Rico and El Salvador who have migrated to Delaware and have changed its character. People migrate or move to and from places because of different push factors that make people want to leave a place, such as wars and famine, and pull factors that make people want to come to a place, such as jobs and freedoms. The type of transportation between places can also affect their amounts and type of interaction. Places with rail connections can easily exchange heavy freight items like cars and tractors. Places close to interstate highways can easily take advantage of truck transport. Generally, the easier transportation makes a place to get to, the more interaction it will have with its surroundings. Larger cities have many connections‐ highways, rail connections, airports, mass transit, and telecommunications. Generally speaking, the smaller the settlement, the fewer the connections it has. The main function of this farm settlement is to produce food. Its site has fertile soil and a good climate for growing crops. Neither settlement, city or farm, is completely isolated. Cities interact with the farms because they need food. Farms interact with the cities by buying the food, but also by providing specialized services like banking, hospitals, and airports in return. Cities have specialized functions. This city was once a town, but its situation was excellent and that enabled it to grow into a city.  How can the economy or religious freedom be examples of both push and pull factors?  How do cities and rural areas interact with each other? Part III In Delaware, the United States, as well the world, places and settlements have different sizes and contain different levels of economic activity based on their site and situation. For instance, Christiana Mall, located at the junction of Route One, Route Seven, I‐95, 495, and 295 is by far the largest shopping center in Delaware because of these major roads making its situation accessible or close to shoppers from Wilmington, Delaware’s suburbs, and even shoppers from Philadelphia who drive down I‐95. The Christiana Mall has excellent situation. All of the major highways surrounding it make it highly accessible to the area’s shoppers. The mall’s situation has increased its connectivity to other places, thus increasing economic activity, and enabling the mall to grow. Stores like Apple pay large amounts of money to rent space in the Christiana Mall because it is profitable to make your business so accessible to shoppers. Stores are not interested in the mall’s site, but instead on its situation. Delaware’s history and settlement patterns show how choices based on site and situation affected the distribution of places in Delaware. When Europeans first began to set up settlements in Delaware, like Lewes and New Castle, it was vital for the settlements’ site to be on the coast and to have fertile soil. A coastal site enabled colonists to be situated where the colony could still interact and trade with their mother countries. Fertile soil was needed for the colonists to grow food. Recently in Delaware’s settlement, suburbs have been situated away from urban areas for various reasons such as cheaper land or the perception of urban crime. Suburbs are only feasible because of the widespread availability of cars that Delawareans enjoy.  There is only one Apple Store in Delaware. Why did the owners choose Christiana Mall as the location?  What physical factors could negatively impact a place’s situation? Part IV If you were to spend a summer hanging out with a friend from Ghana in West Africa, doing things such as having dinner with his family or watching movies from Ghana, the exposure to another culture would change you. At the least, it would make you more aware of other people’s way of life. Similarly, places across the world are different and have changed in part because of their exposure to cultures other than their own. The world today has many cultures. However, most current cultures can trace their roots back to a distinct part of the ancient world where their culture began. These places where cultures began, from which distinctive languages, customs, and religions started and spread out from, are known as cultural hearths. The cultural hearth for India and the Indian people is along the Indus and Ganges rivers. This cultural hearth is where the cultures of India, like Hinduism, began and spread out from. Other cultural hearths include but are not limited to, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, West Africa, Peru for the Incas, Guatemala for the Mayans, and the North China Plain for the Chinese. Rome is the cultural hearth of Romance Languages like Spanish, French, and Portuguese that are based on Latin, the language of Ancient Rome. Cultural traits, like Spanish language, and religions, such as Islam, are diffused or spread by both trade, by travel and immigration, and sometimes by conquest. A cultural trait, such as a religion is stronger, prevalent, or more dominant in some places of the world than in others. They form a cultural region with a core and a periphery. The place where a culture is strongest is that culture’s core. Typically, a culture’s core surrounds the culture’s cultural hearth. Areas influenced by a culture, but not as substantially influenced as the core, are a culture’s periphery. The Map below shows Muslim or Islam distribution outside the Americas. Islam’s origin or cultural hearth is in Saudi Arabia. Islam’s core is near the cultural hearth in countries like Egypt. Islam’s periphery is on the edges of Islam like in Western China. I.
C
ultural
 Define the terms below: TERM Cultural Hearth Diffusion Cultural Region Core Periphery DEFINE  On the map below, identify and label the following: Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, West Africa, Peru for the Incas, Guatemala for the Mayans, and the North China Plain for the Chinese. Part V Over time, the culture of places can change. In the United States for example, the culture of communications is changing. People have gone from sharing information via letters to sharing via telegrams to phone calls to emails and most recently to text messages. What has been the effect of the changing technology of communication in the United States? Many people worry that because of the increased interactions between countries, worldwide cultural diversity is being replaced by a movement towards cultural similarity. For instance, every year in Africa, a distinct language is destroyed and completely forgotten. Many of Africa’s over one thousand different languages are being forgotten because over time, they are replaced by English. English is being learned instead of traditional African languages because knowing English provides more jobs and entertainment opportunities like Hollywood movies and western music. But increased communication can make music, ideas, language and events in far away places more accessible to more people. It can increase the awareness and appreciation for diversity. In addition to culture, places are distinctive or unique because of the economic, agricultural and industrial, activities found there. Three substantial factors account for the differences in agriculture and industry in different parts of the world. A place’s climate, physical features, and raw materials or natural resources determine what industries and agricultural products a place has. For instance, wheat is grown in Canada instead of cotton because of the climate. Similarly, much of the world’s rubber is produced in Brazil because of its abundance of the natural resource of rubber trees. Distance to markets and transportation costs are other factors that determine a place’s agricultural and industrial activities. When refrigerated trucks were introduced, farmers were able to produce milk and meat in states like Kansas and ship the fresh food to areas far away such as Los Angeles. This change of agricultural and industrial production changed the culture of both Kansas and Los Angeles. Finally, places around the world are formed or built differently because of the environment, culture, and time period when the places were built. These different settlement patterns make every place’s distinctive and unique. Wilmington Delaware is a typical American City with Ancient city streets in Damascus, Syria, were grid‐iron planning. Notice how the streets meet avenues built before cars were invented. Damascus’s at a planned 90°. Wilmington’s planned design unplanned design contributes to its contributes to its distinctiveness. distinctiveness.  How can places that are physically similar, be culturally different from each other?  Additionally, what factors make various places around the world similar to each other? Geography Standard Four: Students will develop an understanding of the character and use of regions and the connections among them. Part I Just like all people are unique, so are the world’s places. And just as it is impossible to know and understand every person in the world, so it is with the world’s places. With people, we develop groups or categories such as races, ethnicities, religious groups, and social classes to simplify and better understand humanity. Similarly, geographers developed the idea of regions to simplify and better understand the world. Regions do not physically exist, but are defined as an area of the earth’s surface enclosing places that have a common characteristic or theme. Regions are collections of places defined by a characteristic or theme such as religion, location, culture, and linguistics among many others. A climatic region may include the area where places experience a similar climate, such as the tropical regions or arid regions. An agricultural region, as shown in the map below, may be an area where places engage in a similar type of agriculture, such as Corn, Cotton, or Wheat. Regions can be simple and are used in everyday language when you say words like “neighborhood” or “downtown.” The map to the right shows agricultural regions of the United States. The places within each region share a common characteristic, their main crop. Drawing regional boundaries like with the Old Cotton Belt is often difficult, so zones rather than exact lines are used. Regions are often made up and are a product of people’s mind. Once identified however, regions can take on real and widespread meaning. We might not know exactly the location of the “the South” in the United States, but being “Southern” or from “the South” invokes or raises strong feelings both positive and negative. With many regions, such as “the South,” it is hard for geographers to determine and draw official boundaries to identify that region. Imagine the difficulties in having to determine the exact border for where a “downtown” area ends and begins.  Why do geographers break space up into regions?  How did the regions in the map above get their names? Part II Regions are just a group of places with a common characteristic or theme. Regions overlap and places are often considered part of many regions. You yourself live in many different regions such as your state, county, school district, and either a rural, suburban, or urban region. Just like people and places, regions are also distinctive, and this distinctiveness, or ability to offer unique goods, services, and experiences, makes them connected to other regions. For example, business regions such as “downtown” are connected to housing regions such as the “suburbs” where many of the “downtown” workers live. Conversely, “suburbs” are connected to “downtown” regions because many suburbanites commute to the “downtown” offices for work. Amusement parks regions such as six flags are connected to populated regions such as New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Regions are connected to other regions. Regions that sell entertainment, such as Six Flag Parks, are connected to major US population regions. This connection is a planned result of locating the parks near cities so that they are more accessible to people. Parks located near large populations show how regions are connected. Can you find other examples?  List the overlapping regions that you are in right now: Part III It is important that you can apply the geographic concept of regions to your community and identify the particular regions that your community is a part of at both the Delaware and the United States levels or scales. Your community, or where you live in Delaware, is considered part of many different regions. By understanding the various regional identities of your community and state, you can develop a profile or summary of the distinctive features of the place where you live. Because of its distinctive location, culture, and economy, Delaware is simultaneously a part of many different regions. Below are just a few examples of the various regions Delaware is considered to be a part of. Because of its level of development, Delaware is a part of the region known as Megalopolis, a densely populated and overwhelmingly urban region of the United States on the North‐
Because of Delaware’s location, Delaware is also considered to be part of the Mid‐Atlantic Region of the United States. As the name suggests, these states are coastal and are in the Middle of the United States, between New England and the Southern States. Because of its location, history, and cultural traditions, many people consider Delaware to be a part of “the North” region, while many people consider, like on the map, Delaware to be a part of “the South.” Strangely, both groups are correct. Historically, Delaware has had ties to the South such as being a slave state, but also ties to “the North” such as joining the Union during the Civil War.  Why would people have different interpretations of whether Delaware is in the Northern or Southern region of the U.S.? Part IV There are three main types of regions, formal, functional, and perceptual. With formal regions, the defining features of the region extend clearly and consistently from border to border. An example of a formal region could be a political or geographical region such as Central America. Functional regions are regions where the defining feature of the region is based around a central place or feature, where it is strongest, but usually becomes less evident or weaker towards the edges of the regions. For example, radio stations have regions of reception centered on a central point of their tower. The reception is strongest near the tower, but becomes weaker as you move further away. Perceptual regions are imaginary regions with no officially agreed upon‐boundaries. For example, “the West” is a Perceptual region because there is no official list of states of “the West Coast.” Some people consider Colorado part of “the West Coast,” while other people do not. The seven countries of Central America form a formal region because the borders of Central America are clearly between Mexico and South America. The “Bible Belt” is a perceptual region because it has no clear borders, but is defined by areas perceived to be very Christian and conservative. Economic activities are usually defined in terms of functional regions where the edges are zones rather than single lines. These economic regions are increasingly based on specialization. Moreover, these specialized regions can be altered by changes in transport technology, politics, or climate. For instance, Australia was once only a producer and exporter of wool until refrigerated ships enabled Australians to ship meat to countries like England and the United States, shifting its specialization from wool to meat production. Economic areas such as wheat production areas are defined in terms of functional regions where the boundaries of the region are zonal and not straight lines. The region mapped here represents wheat production. The US is specialized in wheat production due to our climate and soil. However, this map shows how the current specialized wheat region could be altered and moved north due to climate changes.  Explain the 3 types of regions, and come up with your own examples of each: Perceptual Formal Example: Example: Functional Example: Part V In most school lunchrooms, there are sections or tables in the lunchroom that people have claimed and share with people who they identify with and have befriended. Similarly people with a shared cultural or political identity claim an area of the earth’s surface and it is then their territory, from which they usually form a country. This territory is always a formal region defined by specific borders such as rivers or lines of latitude. In a perfect world, all people would be able to peacefully claim and control the territories that reflect the sovereignty or control that those people has over that land. Unfortunately, peaceful cooperation like that which produced the calm and stable Canadian‐US border is not always common. Often, countries try to enlarge their country by invading other territories. Additionally, in many places, conflicts exist because different people simultaneously claim to the same territory. Imagine that one day two groups of students were to arrive to claim a lunch table at the same time. Hopefully the students would politely share, or one group would offer to sit somewhere else. But often, this simple territory dispute would lead to conflict between the two groups either in the form of an argument or a shoving match. Many similar conflicts occur between different peoples of the world. For example, Jews and Palestinians both claim to be the rightful sovereigns of Israel. In Northern Ireland there is conflict between Protestant and Catholic people over the territory. There is conflict in Los Angeles between immigrant groups and groups of people who have been there longer about who is going to control certain territories. Additionally, boundaries can become unstable when people make new claims to territory based on the discovery of new resources like diamonds and oil, or migration, the movement of people. Today’s present‐day division of the earth’s surface into various political and cultural regions is the result or is the consequence of conflict and cooperation between countries and ethnic groups or types of people. Northern Ireland is a region that has experienced much conflict as a result of two groups, largely Protestants and Catholics, both wanting to control Northern Ireland. Much conflict has arisen from the lack of cooperation in the Middle East to establish a Kurdish territory. Without their own country, the Kurds are often a persecuted minority and have fought to gain territory.  Explain the differences between political and cultural borders. Give an example of both a political and cultural regions. Can they be the same? Part VI Imagine you live in a house with a backyard that borders another backyard. Imagine that in your backyard you have a swimming pool. Would you want other neighbors to come in your backyard and use the pool as if it were there own? Of course you would not. To prevent unwanted neighbors from using your pool, you would set up boundaries such as a row of trees, a fence, or just an imaginary line that represents the border of your property. Similarly, formal regions and countries establish official boundaries to clearly mark their territory. However, each different way countries form their boundaries has advantages and disadvantages. For example, what happens if countries use a river for a boundary, like with the United States and Mexico, if that river changes course? If a country uses a precise line of longitude or latitude for a border, an advantage is the boundary’s clarity, but a disadvantage is that the line might cut through a town or divide neighborhoods into separate countries. Simple straight lines ignore the much more complex boundaries of human culture, such as ethnicity. The map to the left shows modern national boundaries in mostly straight bold lines, and African tribal, cultural and ethnic groups, in mostly curved thin lines. Most of the national boundaries such as Somalia were made with no thought to the territory’s cultural diversity. Many African national borders were determined by European Imperialists who claimed control over the land. Often the Imperialists would determine border by lines of latitude and longitude, while disregarding traditional African borders. Regions and their boundaries are not always permanent, since the conditions that created them have changed over time. For instance, the regional boundaries of the various African cultural and ethnic groups were severely disrupted or completely wiped out during the Age of Imperialism. Once colonized, the borders of the different cultural and ethnic groups were erased and instead of them, European colonial powers developed their own country borders in Africa. Conversely, new regions and new regional boundaries can also be created. For example, the European Union is actively seeking to create a single region out of what were once 25 independent countries. Political boundaries of countries define formal regions, and these boundaries are hard to change. But people often ignore these boundaries and change where they live, work, or worship. Just as with formal regions, the boundaries of functional regions, where the defining characteristic of the regions is strongest in the center and becomes less evident towards the edges, can also pose difficulties. When a region’s influence declines over a zone, placing the boundary is often arbitrary and random because it is unclear at what point has the region’s influence sufficiently diminished? For example, the Mississippi River regions, who’s defining characteristic is land affected by the Mississippi River. It is hard to determine exactly where its region begins and ends. Should the Mississippi River region be all the states that the river goes through, or just a certain numbers of miles on each side of the river, or just areas where people are directly affected by the river? The map below shows a Theissen polygon that places the boundary of a region at the midpoint between two regional centers. Here the regional centers are determined by where Major League Baseball Teams were located in 1998. When analyzing the map below, a few trends become apparent. Some MLB teams have larger regions than others and that the locations of MLB teams are determined by population densities. The map also makes apparent the difficulties in trying to map a functional region because although it is clear where the central points are because of the team’s stadium, how far does the influence of the team go? Some teams like the New York Yankees likely have the most nationwide influence, yet this map shows their territory as being one of the smallest. Some of the teams’ functional regions are quite large due to their areas’ low population density. Teams like the Seattle Mariners might cover four different states. Some of the teams’ functional regions are quite small due to their areas’ high population density. Teams like the Phillies might cover areas smaller than their Although not a life or death issue, this map showing regions could be used in solving the problem of where to put new expansion teams. Likely, league owners would look for places furthest from other teams to make a new team. This idea of using regions to solve problems is often applied to more serious problems such as where to locate facilities such as high schools, fire stations, and hospitals. The location of hospitals relative to other hospitals and the population served often results in some people having better access to care and medical services than others. Planners could use maps of hospitals like the one above, to more accurately assess where a new one should be built.  What may lead to changing boundaries between regions?  How are the roles of boundaries different for formal, perceptual, and functional regions? Summaries Handout Directions: Using the Kaplan AP Human Geography book that you purchased, read “Geography & Its Perspectives” and complete the following summarizing exercises. 1.
For each subheading (Letter or Arabic Numeral [1, 2, 3]), write a 10‐Word Summary describing the most important part of that particular chunk of text. For example, after you have read about the Greeks, write your 10‐word summary of their contributions to geography. 2.
For each heading (Roman Numeral [I, II, III…), write a 2‐3 sentence summary highlighting the importance of the entire section you just read. For example, after you have read through all of “Historical Foundations of Geography,” write your summary of the history of the study of the Earth. I. Historical Foundations of Geography Subheading A. The Greeks 10‐Word Summaries B. The Modern Period C. Today & Beyond I.
Heading Historical Foundations of Geography Full‐Section Summary II. Maps: An Introduction Subheading A. Scale 10‐Word Summaries B. Distortion C. Map Classes and Types D. The Misuse of Maps Heading II. Maps: An Introduction Full‐Section Summary III. Five Themes of Geography Subheading A. Place 10‐Word Summaries B. Region C. Location D. Human‐
Environment Interaction E. Spatial Interaction or Movement Heading III. Five Themes of Geography Full‐Section Summary IV. Six Essential Elements in Geography Subheading A. The Spatial World 10‐Word Summaries B. Places & Regions C. Physical Systems D. Human Systems E. Environment & Society F. Uses of Geography in Today’s Society Heading IV. Six Essential Elements in Geography Full‐Section Summary V. Diffusion Subheading A. Relocation Diffusion 10‐Word Summaries B. Expansion Diffusion 1. Hierarchical 2. Contagious 3. Stimulus Heading V. Diffusion Full‐Section Summary VI. Distribution Subheading A. Density 10‐Word Summaries B. Concentration C. Pattern Heading VI. Distribution Full‐Section Summary