CULTURE
INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
1. Define the following terms:
a. culture:
d. artifact:
b. cultural geography:
e. sociofacts:
c. culture region:
f. mentifact:
2. Match:
_____ Habit
_____ Cultural Trait
_____ Cultural Complex
_____ Cultural Region
_____ Cultural Realm
a. The repetitive act of an individual person not necessarily adopted by the group.
b. The smallest building block of culture. (e.g. objects, beliefs, attitudes, customs,
techniques.)
c. A functionally related group of cultural traits. (religion, language, business
behavior, agricultural type)
d. The spatial extent of a cultural complex or group of related cultural complexes
(Central Coast, U.S. Southwest, Mormon Zone, Bantu Region, Middle East)
e. A group of cultural regions showing similar traits or complexes. These are in effect
global scale cultural regions (see map A on reverse)
3. Review: Tasks of Human Geographers. What are the three general questions asked by human geographers when
studying any human activity? What form might each of those questions take for cultural geographers?
4. Review: Diffusion. Name and briefly define the three types of diffusion identified and used by human geographers
to describe and predict how phenomena spread over time. Which type or types of diffusion do you think best
describes and predicts the spread of folk culture (small, usually rural, isolated, homogeneous cultures)? Which
type or types do you think best describe and predict the spread of popular culture (large, usually urban,
heterogeneous cultures)?
5. Review: Geographic Regions. Name and briefly define the three types of regions used by human geographers to
identify the spatial distribution of any human activity. What type of region are cultural regions?
6. You have been dropped randomly by parachute into one of the regions on the three maps of cultural regions on
the back of this page. Upon landing you have the ability to go anywhere without being seen. On another sheet of
paper brainstorm a list of anything you might see or overhear (remember: you can go anywhere, rural or urban,
inside and outside of homes, into kitchens, bathrooms, cars, anywhere!) that would help you determine which
cultural zone you had been dropped into. Include artifacts, sociofacts, and mentifacts, but not climate or physical
landscape (soil, land forms, etc.) unless it has been altered by human beings.
A. AP Human Geography Culture Realms (source: AP College Board):
B. One geographer's take on U.S. culture regions:
C. Native American Culture Regions, c. 1600: