Five Themes of
Geography
“Being geographically skilled is like putting on
glasses. You didn’t know your vision was fuzzy until
you put them on. Suddenly, your surroundings are
much clearer. What were unrelated components now
connect into patterns and relationships.”
-Sarah Bednarz, Professor of Geography
Location
How do I get there? Where is it?
two ways to explain the location of a place
1. absolute location
the exact spot where a place can be found
&
2. relative location
describing a place by it’s surrounding area
Examples of Location
• absolute location = street address such as 55
Pecunit St. OR using longitude and latitude
coordinates
• relative location = Canton is southwest of Boston
OR Massachusetts is located south of NH and VT
Place
What is it like to live there?
All places in the world are described
differently according to their characteristics.
There are two types of characteristics
1. physical
2. human
Two Types of Place
• physical characteristics are natural features
such as landforms, bodies of water, trees, soil,
vegetation, animal life, and water.
• human characteristics are things made by
humans or relating to people’s way of life (their
activities, transportation, religion, language,
settlement patterns, and economic activities).
Regions
How do geographers organize places?
a region identifies a group of places or an area that
share common physical and human characteristics
Some of the ways that regions are identified:
• physical characteristics such as landforms & climate
• cultural features such as the Muslim world
• political features such as a state, city/town
• economic features such as the developing world, EU
• global such as a continent or the Middle East
• local such as North Shore, South Shore, North End
Movement
What factors influence where people live?
• The movement of people, goods, and ideas from place
to place.
• Today, the Internet is a great tool for the quick
movement of ideas, in addition to phones, trucks,
busses, trains, barges, planes, books, newspapers,
storytelling, etc.
Movement
Migration
• Migrate - to move from one area to live in another.
Migration is the result of push and pull factors
– push factor- problems in an area that cause people to move out
of an area
• ex: natural disasters, poor economy, war
– pull factor- advantages in another area that make people want to
move in
• Ex: family, economic opportunity
Human Environment Interaction
How do people and the earth affect each other?
• Wherever people live they are continuously interacting
with the world around them
• Humans depend on, adapt to, and modify the world
around them to make their lives easier 
• Society cannot be separated from the environment. The
environment affects how we live, work, dress, travel, and
communicate!
List examples of how we depend on, adapt to, and modify
the world we live in
Hidden Costs of Interaction
• Air pollution
• Pesticides
• Deforestation
People must decide how to develop their economies
without destroying the environment. This is a key issue
in developing countries.
A region can be as large as a
continent or as small as your
neighborhood
• Make a list of regions around the world