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Chapter 1
The World of Geography
Section 1
The Five Themes of Geography
Geography
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Is the study of the Earth
Geographers are guided by
two basic questions:
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Where are things located???
Why are they there???
To find the answers, geographers
use themes to organize information
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Location: where a point exists
Place: a location’s physical and human
features
Human Environment interaction: how people
affect their environment
Movement: How goods, ideas, and people
get from one place to another
Regions: Large areas that are linked by
similar characteristics
Location
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Absolute location
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A places exact
position on Earth
(geographic address)
 Uses latitude and
longitude
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Relative location
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Explains where a
place is by
describing places
near it.
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“I live in Bismarck,
190 miles west of
Fargo”
Location
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Lines of Latitude:
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Parallels:
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Another name for lines of latitude, because
they are parallel to one another
Degrees:
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East-West circles around the globe
Unit used to measure location on maps
Equator:
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A parallel in the middle of the globe
Location
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Lines of Longitude:
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Meridians:
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Lines that circle the globe from North-South
Another name for lines of Longitude
All run through the North and South Poles
Prime Meridian:
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Runs though Greenwich, England
Is 0 degrees longitude
Latitude and Longitude
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Latitude
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Measured North and South of Equator
Longitude
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Measured East and West of Prime Meridian
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(Greenwich, England)
Measured in degrees, minutes, seconds
Degree - 69.1 miles
Minute - 1.15 miles
Second - 101 feet
Place
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Physical features
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Climate - hot or cold
Land is hilly
Human features
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How many people live there
What these people do
Human - Environment
Interaction
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How have people learned to survive in
the area?
How do they deal with the environment?
Are they helping or hurting the
environment?
Movement
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Helps people understand cultural
changes
Goods and people move: bringing their
culture with them
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Immigrants to America
Regions
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Used to make comparisons
Deserts, forests, plains, mountains
Plain
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A region of flat land
Section 2
The Geographer’s Tools
Maps

Globe
The most accurate description
 Hard to carry around
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Scale
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Size of an area on a map compared to the actual
size of an area (1 in= 100 miles)
Flat maps
Easy to carry around
 Shows some distortion. (misrepresentation)
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Change in the accuracy of the shapes and distances
Maps
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Projection - method of putting a map of the Earth
onto a flat piece of paper
Mercator Projection
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Gerardus Mercator
Flat map - used by sailors
 Shows correct shapes of landmasses, but not true
distances or sizes
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Robinson Projection
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Arthur Robinson
Best world map available
 Distorted around the edges
 WAS Official projection for National Geographic – now
Winkle Tripel
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More Maps
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Interrupted projection map
“Orange Peel”
 Hard to figure distances correctly
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Distortion
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Flat maps distort land masses because the
Earth is round.
Subject of a Map = Title
Parts of a map
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Compass rose
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Key
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Shows the cardinal directions: north, south, east,
and west.
“legend” explains the symbols for features such as
roads and cities.
Grid
Helps people find things on the map
 Parallels and meridians
 Letters and numbers
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