Unit 1: Intro to Human Geography

Geographers ask “where” things are, and more importantly “why” they are there

-Organize material by place and recognize that something happening at one place can be a result of something that happened elsewhere

What is Human Geography?

• How we organize Space and Society• How we interact with each other in places

and across spaces• How we make sense of others and

ourselves in our locality, region, and world– To put into simple terms: interactions between

humans and environment and each other

 

• Geographers observe that people are being pulled in different directions by two factors, globalization and local diversity

• Globalization- set of processes that are increasing interactions, deepening relationships and heightening interdependence between people of the world

• Ex: modern technology and communication bring cultures and economies in contact with rest of world

Basic Geographic Concepts• Scale- the relationships between the local, regional,

national, and globalGeographers use scale to see effects of

globalization on the world and the localJumping Scale- taking an idea of something and

viewing its effects on different scales

• Ex: rice. . . –western cultures view rice as a simple profit making food to sell

-eastern cultures view it as a culture building food to grow together and to share, never to sell

-west dominates and jumps scale to force Eastern cultures to buy improved strains of rice so that they grow faster and don’t have to spend so much time growing

Ex: fast food. . . -Asian and European cultures view food as a culture building experience to grow and eat

-American cultures invented fast food in the small town of Des Plaines, Illinois

-(McDonalds) and spread the idea of eating on the go

-Today we see fast food restaurants all over world

• Ex: “Think global, act local”

-Environmentalists say this to get people aware of the issue of global warming

-Problem is at global scale, but can be fixed by acting on the local scale

Space

• Space or Spatial- How things are laid out, organized, and arranged on the Earth and how they appear on the landscape, the physical gap between two objects and why it exists.

• -Use Spatial Distribution in order to map and find patterns and relationships between places and things.

• Ex: Cholera mapping to find cause of the pandemic by Dr. Snow (P. 10)

 

Dr. Snow Cholera Map

• Spatial Perspective-combine time and space (history and geography) to find out Why things are where they are and WHY things happened when they did because of where they are.

• Human Geographers use spatial perspective to study the important topics today

B. The Five Themes

• 1. Location- How the geographic position of people & things on Earth affects what happens and why

 • Location Theory- using

geography to find out WHY something should be located in a specific place. EX: the best place for a new Super Target would be????? Because?????

• 2. Human Environment Interaction- The effect that humans have on their environment (global warming, ice cap melting) and the effect that the environment has on humans (building a house on stilts to counteract flooding)

• 3. Region- Geographers group like phenomena together into what they call regions so that they can be easier studied and categorized (ex: North/South- based on accents)

4. Place

• Human and physical characteristics of a specific area (what is it like there?)

• Sense of Place- humans give emotion and meaning to places by remembering what happened there or giving a place a character (ex: What does home mean to you?)

Place Contd.

• Perceptions of Place- way you view other places based on pictures, books, movies, or stories. Usually people prefer places like their home area even if they have never been there (ex: Where would you live if you could go anywhere?)

Where Pennsylvanians preferred to live (above)

Where Californians preferred to live (below)

Movement

5. Movement- mobility of people, goods, and ideas across the surface of the Earth

• Spatial Interaction- depends on the distance and accessibility of places, and the transportation and communication connectivity among places

6. Landscape- Not one of the five themes, but very important still. Defined as the character of a place, the natural features, human

structures, and other tangible objects that give a place a particular form.

• Cultural Landscape- visible imprint of human activity (ex: a church with a cross on top would represent which religious group?)

 • Sequent Occupance- successive groups live on the same land and

each leaves their own imprint (Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam- settled by Arabs- left mosques and domed structures, then Germans- added their own buildings, finally British- changed many buildings to apartment high rises)

Hindu crematorium in Kenya

Dar es Salaam

• British style apartments in Dar es Salaam

C. Maps- What are they and what do they tell us???

• Cartography- the art and science of making maps / Cartographer- mapmaker

 • Scale- amount of area covered on a map and the

amount of detail • Fractional scale: 1:24,000 or 1/24,000 means that one

unit (inch, centimeter, foot) equals 24,000 of the same unit on the Earth’s surface

• Written Scale- “1 inch equals 1 mile” • Graphic Scale- bar line marked to show distance on

Earth’s surface- use a ruler to figure out distances

Projection: Earth is a sphere, so a globe is the best way to represent it, but you can’t show detail needed on a globe

• -The scientific method of transferring locations on Earth’s surface to a flat map is called Projection

• -problem is that there are distortions when you stretch the shape of the earth

1. shape 2. Distance

3. Relative size 4.Direction

Interrupted Map Projection shows how we would have to transfer a sphere to a flat map

Types of projections:

• Equal Area Projection – • benefits: relative size of

landmasses on map is same, minimizes distortion in shape of most landmasses.

• Drawbacks: polar areas, like Greenland and Australia become more distorted.

Robinson Projection

• benefit: displays information across oceans accurately.

• Drawback: land areas are displayed small.

Mercator Projection

• - advantages: little shape distortion, direction consistent, map is rectangular.

• Drawback: Poles grossly distorted

Types of Maps:

• Reference- show locations of places and features

• Thematic- tell stories such as movement with the use of??

• Absolute location- determined by a frame of reference (longitude/latitude)

• -used to calculate distances between places & time zones / DOES NOT CHANGE

• GPS (Global Positioning System)- satellite-based location system, extremely accurate (ex: cars,cell phones)

• Relative Location- a place in relation to other human or physical features (Dacula is Northeast of Atlanta and West of Athens)

• -Relative locations DO CHANGE OVER TIME- NOT STATIC!!

• Mental Maps- maps in your mind of places that you have been or places that you have heard of

• -not always accurate, but used very frequently (ex: how do you get to the cafeteria?)

• -used for places in our activity space- where you travel on your daily routine

• Remote Sensing- data collected by satellites and aircraft that are instantly available

• Hurricane mapping, rainfall over time, weather channel uses this

GIS

• GIS- Geographic Information Systems- combining layers of spatial data into a computerized environment to superimpose patterns and processes

• -political geographers plot: voters, their party, their race, chance of voting, income, etc.

• -you can get a degree in geography and use this program for wildlife companies, government agencies, or private businesses for a living

D. Regions

• Formal Region (also called uniform region)- region marked by visible uniformity (everything is the same)

• Ex: Climate conditions, production of a particular crop, or common language

• Functional Region (also called nodal region)- product of interactions or movement

• Ex: City defined by commuters in suburbs who come to the city to work

• Or a store- region defined by people who come to buy there

• Or a newspaper- region defined by where it circulates

• Perceptual region (also called vernacular region)- Primarily in the mind of a person, how you think about a region (p. 26). Ex: Swiss culture- clocks, knives, cheese, chocolate?????

• -Some are very hard to define, such as North & South. If we are defining these culturally, where does one start and the other begin? Is there a line where people don’t eat fried chicken, grits, Waffle House & speak with a southern accent? NO, so that is why perceptual regions are in the mind.

Perceptual Region

E. Culture• -the body of customary beliefs, material

traits, and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group of people

Pop culture is represented by this poster. What two culture icons are represented?

• Culture Trait- Single attribute of a culture. Ex: turban for some Muslim societies

• -may be used by more than one culture (ex: being a Christian)

• Culture Complex- Grouping culture traits shared by a group of people

• -ex: herding cattle is a trait, but cattle are used in different ways by different cultures

• -Europe- milked and used for beef

• -Masaai Tribe of Africa- follow herds, eat blood custard, central part of life

• Culture Hearth- area where culture trait develops and then diffuses

• Ex: Islam traced to Mecca and Medina but then spread elsewhere

• Independent Invention- develops several places at the same time (no clear hearth)

One hearth of agriculture is though to be the fertile crescent

Culture terms:• Culture Diffusion- spread of an idea or innovation

from its hearth to other places

• Time Distance Decay- The further a place is from the hearth and the more time it takes to spread an idea means that it is less likely to be adopted

• Cultural Barriers- work against diffusion (ex: India does not eat beef, so fast food restaurants would be less likely to spread to this country with their menus of hamburgers)

F. Types of Diffusion

• Diffusion- process by which a characteristic spreads across space from one place to another over time

• 2 basic types• 1. Relocation Diffusion- the spread of an idea

through the physical movement of people from one place to another

• -individuals already adopted the idea or innovation and then move and spread it in their new location

Relocation Diffusion

Again, we see the idea of Hindu culture found in Kenya.

2. Expansion Diffusion• Innovation or idea develops in a hearth and

remains strong there while it spreads outward (ex: Islam out or Arabian Peninsula) – people stay and idea moves

3 types of Expansion Diffusion:

• Contagious Diffusion- Nearly all adjacent individuals are affected (ex: a disease)

• Hierarchial Diffusion-Only susceptible groups adopt the idea (ex: fashion and clothing, rap music)

• Stimulus Diffusion-Not all ideas are readily and directly adopted, underlying principle of idea may though

• (ex: India does not eat beef b/c of religion, so McDonalds serves lamb & veggie burgers there)

A look at Diffusion

G. Geographic Concepts

• Environmental Determinism- says that human behavior is strongly influenced or controlled by the physical environment where they live.

• -says that climate affects people’s behavior

• -the problem with this theory is that the “ideal” climate is an opinion and will be different for different people

• Environmental Possibilism- counter theory to determinism, said that the environment merely serves to limit the range of choices to a culture- still heavily debated

• Cultural Ecology- the study of how and why humans have altered the environment and how the environment may have had different effects on how societies developed – ex: why did some early societies thrive while others were slow to develop?

• Political Ecology- Concerned with environmental consequences of our political and economic arrangements and understandings

Debris found on a beach is a result of human activities

• Distribution- the arrangement of a feature in space- Our desks are close together, that is their distribution

 • Density- The frequency in which something occurs

in space- could be anything- cars, volcanoes, schools, etc.

 • Pattern- Geometric arrangement of objects in

space- could be linear, like houses in a neighborhood street

• Time space compression- reduction in time it takes for something to reach another place

• Ex: 100 years ago communication between USA and Australia would be in the form of a letter that would take months to travel by railroad, then ship, then perhaps horse drawn buggy. Today we just send an email.

• -The time it takes to communicate between two spaces has been compressed or shortened due to technology!