Download What are the five themes?

What are the five themes?
• Tools geographer’s use to study features on
earth.
– Location
– Place
– Movement
– Region
– Human Environment Interaction
The Five Themes of Geography
1. Location:
 Asks the big
question…
 Where is it?
 Why is it located
there?
 This deals with
maps
 Tell me how to get
your house..
The Five Themes of Geography
1. Location: 2 types
 Absolute Location—to locate a place using
a coordinate system (given in degrees of
longitude and latitude)
 Ex: 300 N and 700 W, or 313 1st Street
 Relative Location—to locate a place in
relationship to other landmarks or places
 Ex: “Down the street from my grandma’s
house on the corner with the big elm tree”
The Five Themes of Geography
2. Place:
 Asks the big
question…
 What is it like?
 How is it
different from
other places?
The Five Themes of Geography
2. Place:
 Physical Characteristics—landforms
(mountains, plains), bodies of water (oceans,
lakes, rivers) ecosystems (soil, plants,
animals, & climate) features that make places
different from one another
 Human Characteristics—bridges, roads,
buildings, culture, language
The Five Themes of Geography
 Examples:
 Canada, U.S., and Mexico are all in North
America, but politics makes them different
places and countries
 Economics also make places different—North
vs. South Korea
 Religion makes a place different—Jerusalem
in the Middle East
 Can you think of one of your own?
The Five Themes of Geography
3. Human-Environment Interaction:
 Asks the big question…
 How do people interact with and
change their environment?
The Five Themes of Geography
3. Human-Environment Interaction:
 People depend on the environment
 People adapt to the environment
 People modify the environment
The Five Themes of Geography
4. Movement:
 Asks the big question…
 How are people and places linked by
communication and the flow of people,
ideas and goods?
The Five Themes of Geography
4. Movement:
 Transportation,
communication, trade
 Patterns of movement such
as migration
 Ways that ideas are
transferred from one location
to another
 Trade and Migration change
our world
The Five Themes of Geography
5. Region:
 Asks the big
question…
 What are their
unifying features
and how do they
form and change
over time?
The Five Themes of Geography
5. Region:
 Areas that share common features
 Region is a basic unit for geographic study
 Geographers divide the world into regions to help
them interpret and understand the world
 Regions can be defined on the basis of: physical
and human characteristics