World Regional Geography
January 13, 2010
Reading: Marston Chapter 1
World Atlas vi-xii
Waitlisted Students:
If you are still on the waitlist
please leave your name,
student #, recitation section,
and e-mail on the yellow pad
on the desk before leaving
today.
What is Geography?
• The study of Earth as created by natural
forces and as modified by human action.
• The interaction between humans and the
environment.
What is Geography?
• Physical Geography
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Examine how natural/physical forces shape the
Earth.
What are Earth’s natural processes, and what are
their outcomes?
• Physical Geographers Study
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Climate and weather patterns
Landforms (e.g. mountains)
Rivers and oceans
Soils
Plant and animal ecology
(including but not limited to):
What is Geography?
• Human Geography
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Examines the spatial organization of human
processes, and their relationship to the
environment (physical and social/cultural).
How do humans organize themselves and function
in space? How do these patterns and process
affect the environment, and how does the
environment affect them?
What is Geography?
• Human Geographers Study
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(including but not limited to):
Population and demography
Resource management
Agricultural production and food security
Regional/urban planning
Human and animal disease vectors
Cultural/symbolic meaning of place
Conflict
• Human geographers often categorize
themselves and quantitative or qualitative.
Regional Geography
• Combines physical and human geography.
• How combinations of environmental and
human factors produce unique physical,
social, and cultural landscapes.
• How do natural, social, economic, political,
and cultural phenomena produce distinct
geographic areas?
What is a Region
• “Region” is a concept that is used to identify and
organize areas of Earth’s surface for various
purposes.
• A region is a human construct whose boundaries
and characteristics are derived from sets of
specific criteria.
• Can vary in scale from global to local.
• A region has certain characteristics that give it a
measure of cohesiveness and distinctiveness that
set it apart from other regions.
World Regions
“Extensive geographic divisions based on continental and
physiographic settings that contains major clusters of
humankind with broadly similar cultural attributes.”
Types of Regions
• Formal
• Functional
• Perceptional
Formal Regions
A formal region is comprised of a group of
areal units that share a common
distinguishing feature (human or physical).
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Political entities (counties, states, countries)
Climate/vegetation
Landforms
Language, religion, nationality, culture
Specific measures
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Population density
Per capita income
Temperature
Rainfall
Global
Rainfall
&
Climatic
Zones
World Ecosystems
Basque Language Region
(Spain & France)
Soda, Pop, or Coke?
Functional Regions
A functional region is organized and defined
by patterns of spatial interaction or
organization, and is often centered on a node.
• Metropolitan areas
• Economic interaction
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Trade
Production
• Transportation networks
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Subway system
Air travel
• Communications networks
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Newspaper readership
Radio
Coverage Area Map
KBCO 97.3 FM – Boulder, CO
Metropolitan Statistical Areas
New York
Frontier Airlines Functional Region
Perceptual Regions
A perceptual region is a construct that
reflects human feelings and attitudes about
areas and is therefore defined by people’s
shared subjective images of those areas.
• Often refer loosely to geographic areas
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Southern California
The Upper Midwest
Dixie
• Shared beliefs or attitudes
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Blue / Red America
• Shared interests or loyalties
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Red Sox Nation
Perceptual Regions
• The “perceptual region” will often vary
from person-to-person and his heavily tied
to sense of place.
• Sense of place refers to the feelings
evoked as a result of experiences and
memories that people associate with
place.
• Place attachment refers to the emotional
and functional ties one has to a specific
place.
The United “States”
As defined by baseball loyalties
Defining “New England”
Regions as Dynamic Entities
• Regions are both outcomes of geographic
processes, and part of the process
themselves.
• The properties and boundaries of regions
can change.
• Formal regions defined by political boundaries are
less likely to change spatially, but may change in
character.
• Functional regions typically maintain their defining
characteristic, but change spatially.
• Perceptual regions are both spatially and socially
fluid in nature.
World Regions
“Extensive geographic divisions based on continental and
physiographic settings that contains major clusters of
humankind with broadly similar cultural attributes.”
Economic Development
Social Well-Being
UN Human Development Index
Measures distribution of wealth, education, infant mortality, life
expectancy, gender issues & many other factors
Development & Gender Equality
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Global inequality of female income & attainment
• In many countries women perform most of the work
The Triadic Core