Chapter 1: Introduction to Human Geography
A.
Chapter Summary
Like cultural geography, human geography is not limited to geographical studies of
culture. This book does not contain a list of places or cultures for you to memorize.
Instead, it serves as a study of people and places and explains how they interact across
space and time. Chapters 2 and 3 lay the basis for our study of human geography by
looking at where people live. Chapters 4-7 focus on aspects of culture and how people
use culture and identity to make sense of themselves in their world. The remaining
chapters examine how people have created a world in which they function economically,
politically, socially, and how their activities in those realms recreate themselves and their
world.
B.
Chapter Outline
A. Field Note: Awakening to World Hunger
B. Key Questions
a. What is human geography?
b. What are geographic questions?
c. Why do many geographers use maps, and what do maps tell us?
d. Why are geographers concerned with scale and connectedness?
e. What are geographic concepts, and how are they used in answering
geographic questions?
C. What Is Human Geography?
D. What Are Geographic Questions?
a. Maps in the time of cholera pandemics
b. The spatial perspective
i. The five themes of geography
ii. Cultural landscapes
E. Why Do Geographers Use Maps, and What Do Maps Tell Us?
a. Mental maps
b. Generalizations in maps
c. Remote sensing and GIS
F. Why Are Geographers Concerned with Scale and Connectedness?
a. Regions
i. Perceptual regions in the United States
b. Culture
c. Connectedness through diffusion
i. Expansion diffusion
ii. Relocation diffusion
G. What Are Geographic Concepts, and How Are They Used in Answering
Geographic Questions?
a. Environmental determinism
b. Possibilism
c. Today’s human geography