Chapter One

Thinking Geographically

Issue 1 Why do Geographers Address Where things Are?

• --ADDRESS the logical arrangement of human activities in space

Most important tool for a geographer is the map

• Cartography—Science of map making

• Two decisions are made when making a map– Scale– Projection

Maps serve two purposes

• --A tool for storing reference materials

• --Helps with the location of place

• --Communicating geographic information

• Maps move over time… How?

•

• growth or decrease of a town

• movement of a river

• Change of political boundaries

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

Fig. 1.1: Most of the area of New Orleans flooded after Hurricane Katrina was majority African American. Physical and political geography intersect in analyzing the impacts of the natural disaster

How Geographers Address Location

• Maps– Early mapmaking– Map scale– Projection– U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785

• Contemporary Tools– GIS– Remote sensing– GPS

Early map making

• --Babylonians use the first maps 2300BC• --Polynesians used 3 dimension stick

charts to show islands and currents• --Aristotle was the first to say the Earth

was spherical• --Eratosthenes was the first person to use

the word geography and he tried to calculate the Earth’s circumference.

Polynesian Stick Chart

Maps of the Marshall Islands

A Polynesian “stick chart” depicts patterns of waves on the sea route between two South Pacific islands. Modern maps show the locations of these Marshall Islands.

Marshall Islands depicted in stick chart

Marshall Islands in the South Pacific

• Map Scale—How much of the Earth’s surface is depicted on the map? Scale refers to the relationship of a feature’s size on a map to it’s actual size on Earth.

Scale Differences

Maps of Washington

State

Fig. 1-3: The effects of scale in maps of Washington State. (Scales from 1:10 million to 1:10,000)

Washington State (1:10 million scale)

Western Washington(1:1 million scale)

Downtown Seattle, Washington(1:10,000 scale)

Seattle Region(1:100,000 scale)

• Projection—The scientific method of transferring locations on the Earth’s surface to a flat map

Projection group work activity

• Get into groups of groups of 3. You will need a piece of paper and paper

You can have distortion—4 types

• 1. Shape

• 2. Distance

• 3. Relative Size

• 4. Direction

US Land Ordinance 1875

• Divided the country into a system of townships and ranges to facilitate the sale of land to settlers in the west.

• A township was 6 square miles • North and South lines were principal

meridians, while the east and west lines were called baselines

• A township was divided into 36 sections—1 by 1 miles

• All this explains location in the western United States

Township & Range

System in the US

Fig. 1-4: Principal meridians & east-west baselines of the township system. Townships in northwest Mississippi & topographic map of the area.

How has this affected Mesa?

Principal Meridians & BaselinesU.S. Land Ordinance of 1785

World Political Boundaries (2007)

Fig. 1-2: National political boundaries are among the most significant elements of the cultural landscape

Tallahatchie River, Mississippi

The topographic map of the U.S. Geological Survey has a scale of 1:24,000

Contemporary Tools

• GIS: Store info and produce maps using various bit of info.

• GPS: Can show the exact location on the world

• Remote Sensing: ie mapping vegetation, ice cap, urban sprawl

Layers of a GIS

Fig. 1-5: A geographic information system (GIS) stores information about a location in several layers. Each layer represents a different category of information.

Google Map Chicago pizza restaurants