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Egeo 201: Human
GeographyChapter One
Contemporary Geography by James
Rubenstein
Where & Why – Pattern & Process
Human Geography
• Is a science that deals with three questions:
• Where are things – Looks at and for
PATTERNS
• Why/How things are at a location – Looks at
and for PROCESSES
• Why they are Significant -- IMPACTS
• An introduction to Human Geography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ce4P05TrNQ&feature=related
What is Geography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv2pLYTkwG4&feature=related
Pattern: Crop Circles
• What are these strange patterns
• By what process were they created
– What does this tell us about society in the
UK?
Process: Is there intelligent life
here on earth?
• Investigating Crop Circles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bqNvM7op64
Impact – Who Cares?
http://ww
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h?v=L2Zx
VqdZIiw
Mapping – Providing Location
Terms to know
• Scale
• Projection
• Geographic Grid – lat. Long., time zones
• Remote sensing
• GIS
• GPS
• Mash-ups
Outline of Additional Concepts
• Where
– Location
• Absolute
– Geocodes, coordinate systems, addresses, place
names…
• Relative
– Example “turn where the cow is standing in the field” or
Nebraska is next to Kansas
• Why
– Site & Situation
Where
• Maps show us where things are
Why
• Variety of tools available they include
– Uniqueness of Location
– Uniqueness of Regions
– Distribution of Features
– Connections and Interactions between Places
– Historical or Cultural effects
Uniqueness of Places
• Descriptive Characteristics
– Site
– Situation
• Location Characteristics
– Toponyms
– Mathematical Location
Site
• Internal descriptors at a place
– Physical – includes climate, topography,
quality of soil, existence of natural harbor…
– Human Impacts – includes built environment,
local cultural impacts, long-term changes due
to human occupation
Steps in determining SITE
characteristics
• Establish clear boundaries around a geographic area or
region (“circle the area”)
– Political bounds
– Natural bounds
– Other – market area for a newspaper
• Inside the bounded area evaluate characteristics that are
available
• Could be natural resources
• Natural features – hills, rivers, caves…
• Human developed features – roads, housing
type,
• Etc…
Site Examples
Whatcom County (political bounds)
• Recreational Opportunities: Ocean and
Mountain venues
• Rainy but Mild Climate
• Region dissected by streams, rivers and
wetlands
• Mainly single family housing
• Contains coal and forest resources
Situation
External Relations – linkages between place
being studied and it surroundings
Think Network and links
Steps in determining
SITUATION characteristics
• Think of a network (like a spider web of
activities)
• Describe how the location you are
focusing on relates to all other locations on
the network
Steps in determining
SITUATION characteristics
0. Think of a spider web
1.Change your entities/places (i.e. places) into points
2.Locate connections between the points (building your
web or network)
3.For each point on this network describe how well it is
interconnected, extremes are end-points (dead ends) or
hubs (connections between numerous points)
Situation
Examples
• Access to Economic Inputs – e.g.
connections to oil fields
• Location on travel routes – airline hub and
spoke system or interstates
Example Using Battle of
Gettysburg
Step Back first – Civil War
Regions
Pattern – Process
Toponyms
Examples of Situation and Site
Gettysburg movie part 1
Situation – “…all the roads converge here…what is the name
of this town?” General R.E. Lee
Start around minute 12:00 stop about 13:00
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25l4m_gettysburg-moviepart-1_events
Site -- Colonel Buford – best d** ground I’ve seen all day – the
Devil to pay… the high ground -- 16:40
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x267h7_gettysburg-part2_people
Charge down little round top … we’ll have the advantage of
moving down the hill…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYDhAmjmxYk
Gettysburg –
Site -local features –
high ground
Gettysburg
– Situation –
center of a
network of roads
Toponyms
• Naming a place – helps recognizing WHERE
• Rough rules
Generally naming is based on the following historical progression
1. Natural features (note the remaining Salish names in our region, followed by names left
by the Vancouver Expedition, for example Whatcom Creek and Bellingham Bay)
2. Settlements (the lack of large permanent Native American settlements, left this task to
primarily European & American settlers)
3. Roads (In Bellingham primarily a late 19th early 20th century task -- note the prominence of
State names and even a section of town where streets are named after the Great Lakes (where
do you think these people or developers came from?))
4. Parks, Schools, Public Facilities,... (primarily a 20th century to recent task -- note
the recent name change from Washington National Airport the Ronald Reagan Airport)
5. Anything that's left over or added (in Seattle we now have the "Gov. Rosaylene
Bridge at Evergreen Point" rather than the original Evergreen Point Bridge or the Haggen Court
at Carver Gym some day we might have '" your name here" Recycling Bin in the President
Shepard Coffee Shop at the Viking Addition of the Western Student Union" )
How to Organize Space &
Describe Space
• Regions – relate more to process then
pattern
• Distribution – descriptors that help us
understand patterns
Regions -- spatial organizing tool
• Functional or Nodal – organized around
a node of focal point – television station
market (not satellite)
• Formal or Uniform – everything inside
shares common characteristic – country
with citizens inside (ignore foreign
residents)
• Vernacular or Perceptual – exist in
minds of people as cultural identity –
“Midwest” in the US
Functional Region: Television Markets - organized
around a node of focal point – broadcast signal (note the
outlines of the states and counties are formal regions)
Formal Region from 2008 election County Level Retuns
-- everything inside shares common characteristic
Formal Region from 2008 election State Level Retuns -everything inside shares common characteristic
Formal Region from 2008 election -- everything inside shares
common characteristic -- note difference if controlled for by
population -- Cartogram
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/stateelecredblue1024.png
Vernacular Region: “The South” -- exist in minds of
people as cultural identity
Class Exercise: Vernacular
Region – The West
• Break into groups of about 3
• View the following map and decide what
states below to the region called “The
West” in the US
• Turn in a sheet of paper with your names
and a list of Western states in alphabetic
order
Add the Vernacular South to the
Formal Voting Pattern Region
Distribution
- Density – count of objects in a given land
area
- Concentration – clustered versus
dispersed
- “Geometric” Pattern – geometric
arrangement of objects across space –
regular versus irregular or random pattern
Density: count of an
object per measure of
space
Concentration: How
clustered or
spread/dispersed
across the landscape
Lower Density 24
homes
Highly Dispersed
Higher Density 32
homes
Highly Dispersed
Higher Density 32
homes
Clustered -Concentrated
1950
Concentrated
2009
Dispersed
Geomentric Pattern (2.0)
Pattern – geometric
arrangement of objects across
space – regular versus
irregular or random pattern
Suburban Patterns
Rectilinear Pattern
Curvilinear Pattern
Combination
Other Patterns
Rectalinear
Oval pattern
“Crime Control Suburban
• Note there is only one or
two ways in our out
Distance Decay
Concepts on
Distance
Space-Time
Compresion
Hearth & Diffusion
• Hearth – Where did something originate
• Diffusion – How did it spread
– Relocation Diffusion – result of people moving
– Expansion Diffusion – spread of feature in
additive process
• Hierarchical – from more important to less
• Contagious – widespread throughout
• Stimulus – only idea or underlying principle
spreads
Blue Jeans: Hearth & Diffusion
Relocation – starts in San
Fran. Moves with miners &
others
Expansion Three Types
•Hierarchical – easier to find
in urbanized areas
•Contagious – people see
what the like & buy
•Stimulous – others copy
idea – competing brands
Levi Straus – not wearing
blue jeans!!!
Levi Strauss and His Company
by Susan Saperstein
As historians, we like to correct others’ misconceptions of history. Here are some myths about Levi
Strauss and his company:
MYTHE
• Levi Strauss invented jeans when peddling tent canvas material in gold camps. The miners asked
for strong pants, and he made pants out of the canvas and used rivets on the pockets.
• The company always made jeans.
• The name denim comes from a town in France named Nimes.
• These pants with the riveted pockets were always called jeans.
TRUTH
The actual history goes like this:
• A tailor named Jacob Davis was the inventor of the pants later known as Levi’s or jeans. He
approached Levi Strauss & Co. with his idea to secure a patent. It is likely that Davis thought that
the company could give him the business network needed to market his idea. Ben Davis, his
grandson, later founded the Ben Davis Manufacturing Company – still owned by the Davis family.
• The company started out selling dry goods such as clothing, buttons, bedding, and other textiles to
small stores in the West in the early 1850s. The patent for the pants was not granted until 1873.
http://www.sfcityguides.org/public_guidelines.html?article=244&submitted=TRUE&srch_text=levi%20straus&submitted2=TRUE&topic=
Expansion –Contagious & Hierarchical Diffusion:
Swine Flu 4/27/2009
Human-Environment Interaction
The environment provides a base upon
which humans interact
• Possibilism – adjusting to the environment
– Not environmental determinism
Humans alter the landscape
• Global climate change, leveling and filling
Maps: Look in Book
• Projections
• Scale
• Mathematical Location –coordinate
systems
• Mashing
• GIS
In Class Exercise
1. Break into groups of 2 to 3
2. Write down all the terms you can remember
from Chapter 1 for geographically analysing,
mapping and describing the world. (put your
names on sheet alphabetically)
3. Instructor will flash 3 or 4 maps on the screen
and you’ll have about 30 sec. to identify as
many concepts from your list.
4. Randomly groups will be selected to share their
results.
Other things
• Dumb and Dumber Geography Lesson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUNgdkqjI8E&feature=related
• What is Science? The Daily Show
Definition. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26•
2011/weathering-fights---science---what-s-it-up-tohttp://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/lisa-randall
• University of British Columbia
Okanagan video,"Schist Geographers
Say": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqgiNnR9O3k