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Chapter 1: Basic Concepts
The Cultural Landscape:
An Introduction to Human Geography
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Defining Geography
• Word coined by Eratosthenes
– Geo = Earth
– Graphia = writing
• Geography thus means “earth writing”
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Contemporary Geography
• Geographers ask where and why
– Location and distribution are important
terms
• Geographers are concerned with the
tension between globalization and local
diversity
• A division: physical geography and
human geography
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Geography’s Vocabulary
• Place: unique location or position on
Earth
• Region: combination of cultural/
physical features
• Scale: portion of the Earth compare to
the whole
• Space: gap between two objects
• Connections: relationship btw
people/objects
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Maps
• Two purposes
– As reference tools
• To find locations, to find one’s way
– As communications tools
• To show the distribution of human and physical
features
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Early Map Making
• Above: oldest map (Turkey)
7th century BC
• Below: Babylon (Iraq) 6th
Century BC
Figure 1-2
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Maps: Scale
• Types of map scale
– Ratio or fraction: numerical ration btw
distances on Earth’s surface 1:100
– Written: written word form of ratio
– Graphic: bar line to show distance
• Projection
– Distortion: 4 types
•
•
•
•
Shape: appears more elongated
Distance: distance, more or less
Relative size: altered size
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Direction: distorted
• Map Scale
• 1) Washington State
1:10,000,000 (1 in = 10,000,000
inches or 158 miles)
• 2) Western Washington
1:1,000,000
• 3) Seattle 1:100,000
• 4) Downtown Seattle 1:10,000
• As the area covered gets
smaller, the maps get more
1 in represents smaller
Figuredetailed.
1-4
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distances
2 Types of Uninterrupted Maps
Robinson Map: shape
distortion/ more ocean
Mercator Map: accurate
shape/ distorted poles
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U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785
• Township and range system
– Township = 6 sq. miles on each side
• North–south lines = principal meridians
• East–west lines = base lines
– Township: T1 (distance north or south on a
particular baseline
– Range: R1 (distance east or west on a
particular meridian line
– Sections: each township is divided into 36
sections, each of which is 1 mile by 1 mile.
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Township and Range System
• TL: north-south lines =
meridian lines (red lines).
East-west lines = base
lines (green lines).
• TR: West 6x6 miles/ East
6x6 (then divided into 36
1x1 mile subsections
• BL: scale of 1:24,000 or 1
inch = 24,000 inches
(2,000 ft)
Figure 1-5
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Contemporary Tools
• Geographic
Information Science
(GIScience)
– Global Positioning
Systems (GPS)
– Remote sensing
– Geographic
information systems
(GIS) fig 1-7
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Figure 1-7
A Mash-up
Figure 1-8
https://developers.google.com/maps/
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END of Key Issue 1
How Do Geographers Describe
Where Things Are?
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Key Issue 2
Why is Each Point on Earth
Unique?
pg13 - 28
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Place: Unique Location of a
Feature
• Location: 4 ways to
identify
– Place names
• Toponym:
– Site: the physical
characteristics of a place
– Situation: location of a
place relative to other
places (helps locate a
location)
– Mathematical location:
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Place: Mathematical Location
• Location of any place
can be described
precisely by a numbering
system
– Meridians (lines of
longitude) 74W
• Prime meridian (Greenwich,
England)
– Parallels (lines of latitude)
41N
• The equator
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The Cultural Landscape
• A unique combination of
social relationships and
physical processes
• Each region = a
distinctive landscape
• People/Culture = the
most important agents of
change to Earth’s
surface
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Types of Regions
• Region can apply to
any area larger than a
point but smaller than
the planet.
• Regional Studies:
approach to geography
that emphasizes the
relationship among
social and physical
phenomena in a
particular study. © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Types of Regions
• Formal (uniform) regions
– Example: Florida or Red vs
Blue state.
• Functional (nodal or focal
point) regions
– Example: the circulation
area of a newspaper
• Vernacular (cultural)
regions rather than a
scientific model
– Example: the American South
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Vernacular Region by
Mental Mapping
•
•
•
•
•
American South
Middle East
South America
Miami
Florida State
University
• Hawaii
• Weston
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Spatial Association
• Spatial distribution
of a region can be
constructed to
encompass an area
of widely varying
scale.
• i.e. – cancer rates
vary according to
cultural, economic,
and environmental
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factors
Culture
• Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to
care for”. Body of customary beliefs,
material traits, and social forms that
distinguish a group.
• Two aspects:
– What people care about
• Beliefs, values, and customs
• Three identifying factors of culture derive from:
Language, Religion, & Ethnicity.
– What people take care of
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Pearson Education,
Inc.
• Earning a living;
obtaining
food,
clothing, and shelter
Cultural Ecology
• The geographic study of • Determined by a
human–environment
group’s values
relationships
• Crop selection
• Two perspectives:
determine by
– Environmental determinism: environment
– Possibilism
• Vegetarian vs Non• Modern geographers
generally reject environmental vegetarian
determinism in favor of
• Cremation versus
possibilism because humans
burial
have the ability to adjust to
their environment/ resources
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Physical Processes
determined by human activity/ 4 types
• Climate: Tropics, Dry,
Warm, Cold, Polar
• Vegetation: Forest,
Savanna, Grassland
Desert
• Soil: 12,000 soil types
• Landforms: flat to
mountainous
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Modifying the Environment
• Examples
– The Netherlands
• Polders: creating land by
drainage
– The Florida Everglades
– Not so sensitive environmental
modification/ unintended
environmental/social
consequences
Figure 1-21
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Key Issue 2
Why Is Each Point on Earth
Unique? Pg 13 - 28
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Scale
• Globalization
– Economic globalization
• Transnational corporations
– Cultural globalization
• A global culture?
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Space: Distribution of Features
• Distribution—three features
– Density
• Arithmetic
• Physiological
• Agricultural
– Concentration
– Pattern
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Space–Time Compression
Figure 1-29
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Spatial Interaction
• Transportation networks
• Electronic communications and
the “death” of geography?
• Distance decay
Figure 1-30
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Diffusion
• The process by which a characteristic
spreads across space and over time
• Hearth = source area for innovations
• Two types of diffusion
– Relocation
– Expansion
• Three types: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus
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Relocation Diffusion: Example
Figure 1-31
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The End.
Up next: Population
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