More than just countries and
capitals…
Geography - The study of where
and how natural and human features
and activities are distributed on the
Earth’s surface, the relationships
between them, how their
distributions arose and how they
change over time, and how those
features and relationships affect
human lives.
Important since the
beginning of civilization…
Lascaux,
France –
17,000 YBP
Is this the
world’s first
hunting map?
First time the
“Americas”
appear on a
map!
Mesopotamia –
6,200 BCE
The oldest
known
map…and a tax
map at that!
Waldseemuller
map - 1507
Why is this map
significant to
Americans?
Draws from many fields;
A holistic approach…
Utilizes a wide array of tools…
• Maps
• Remotely-sensed data
– Aerial photographs
– Satellite imagery
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Field work (surveying, interviews,
scientific measurements)
• Archival work
• Charts, diagrams, tables
• Models
• Five senses
• “Geographical Imagination”
Asks questions and
addresses
issues in a unique way…
Geography’s Five Themes:
LOCATION
• Absolute location
– Fixed location within a coordinate system
(longitude and latitude)
– Fixed elevation (not altitude!) above sea level
– Fixed depth below sea level
– “Site” – the collective attributes of a specific
locale
• Relative location
– Position in relation to other places, features, or
phenomena
– “Situation” - the relationship between a locale
and its surroundings
LOCATION
Absolute
YOU ARE HERE
(give or take a
few meters)
LOCATION
Absolute
Using satellites, GPS
devices can fix your location
to the nearest few inches
A simple GPS device, taken to the
summit of Mt. Everest, determined
that the peak is 29,035 feet high rather
than 29,028 feet
The national borders of Saudi Arabia,
Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab
Emirates that run through the the Rub
al Khali or “Empty Quarter” were not
clearly defined until GPS technology
arrived
LOCATION
Relative
LOCATION
Relative
1 hr
30 min
1 hr
15 min
1 hr
10 min
1 hr.
3 hr
Farmville:
convenient to
any number of
interesting
places!
2 hr
30 min
Chapel Hill
Richmond
Virginia
Beach
LOCATION
Relative
YOU ARE HERE
(give or take a
few kilometers)
LOCATION
Site
Istanbul
Although in a severe earthquake zone, the solid bedrock
that makes up the land this city sits on has reduced the
damage to historical monuments there. What city is this?
LOCATION
Situation
CHRISTENDOM
COMMUNIST
BLOC
Bosporus
Dardanelles
North Anatolian Fault
“WEST”
ISLAM
Istanbul is a crossroads in more ways than one!
PLACE
• Transformation of natural landscapes into
cultural landscapes by human action
• Combined attributes of nature and culture
differentiate places and make each place unique
• Places shape human activity
• As products of culture, places have meaning
• As products of culture, places change over time
• Places create a local dynamic that runs counter
to globalization
PLACE
The rich past of
Istanbul makes
it the interesting
place that it is today
Istanbul
Topkapi
Palace
(Turkish)
Hagia
Sophia
(Byzantine/
Turkish
Hippodrome
(Roman)
Blue Mosque
(Turkish)
PLACE
Where would a
cantaloupe cost
over $170 US…
Where would you need
triple decker driving
ranges…
And where
would they
need
to ever-sopolitely cram
you into a
subway car?
Tokyo
PLACE
Mr. Tyson
Mr. Tyson’s
dairy farm
Tyson’s Corner
Places change
over time…
MOVEMENT
• Involves the flow and exchange of commodities,
organisms, people and ideas between places
• Channels and pathways – networks – are
necessary for movement
• Local issues can erect barriers and impede
exchanges
• Distance creates friction, but technological
change can ease the flow
• Movement – in the form of diffusion – creates
interdependence
• Globalization stems from interdependence
MOVEMENT
Petroleum shipments from the Persian Gulf – carried in enormous supertankers –
must navigate a series of sea lanes and chokepoints that concentrate their numbers
in a relatively small area of our vast oceans…
MOVEMENT
…which results in large amounts of oil being spilled in fragile coastal environments.
Notice that the heaviest oil contamination is along sea lanes extending from the
Persian Gulf to Europe and Japan.
MOVEMENT
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
SARS jumped from
East Asia to North
America via airline
travel. This is why
our government is so
concerned about any
disease that can be
transmitted through
the air, like Avian Flu
(if it ever becomes a
person-to-person
disease).
SARS cases worldwide:
8,439 confirmed; 812 deaths
According to World Health Organization, July 4, 2002
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
• Nature does not determine human actions and
human activity cannot completely control nature
• Relationship is usually a cycle of interaction,
change, and response between and among
cultures and natural systems
• Humans assess environmental hazards through
the lens of culture
• Culture and the level of technology determine
what “resources” are
• Human impact on environments depends on
numbers, culture, level of technology, and scale
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
These three habitats are all solutions
to the problem of surviving in the
harsh conditions of the Sahara Desert
in southern Tunisia. The top two use
thick mud brick walls and white wash
to insulate against and reflect some of
the intense sun energy. The bottom
solution involves digging underground
or into hillsides, where the ground
provides natural insulation.
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
If you’re a film maker looking
for an “other worldly” setting
for your movie series, these
habitats are so unfamiliar to
Westerners that they might
very well seem as if they come
from a galaxy far, far away!
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
Imagine how much time,
effort, and human energy
went into creating these
terraced hillside for rice
paddies!
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
Modern technology
allows us to have a
much greater impact
on the earth. We have
incredible power, but
does the fact that we
CAN do something
mean we SHOULD do
something? This is
the controversial Three
Gorges Dam project in
China – one of the
largest dam projects
ever. It will open up
the Yangtze River to
much larger ships,
provide flood control,
and generate
electricity.
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
It also will destroy
one of the great
natural wonders
of the planet.
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT
INTERACTIONS
Not to mention
displacing literally
millions of people.
2009 water level
Wushan
REGIONS
• Groupings of places according to pervasive
similarities of chosen attributes across an area
• Humans define regions by choosing the traits –
physical and cultural – that are grouped together
• Chosen traits are often part of a “regional
landscape”
• Groupings always involve generalizations or
“spatial stereotypes”
• Regions, like places, shape human activity
• Regions, like places, change over time
Formal region – an area in which the chosen trait is
found uniformly throughout
Functional region – an area where the trait is
strongest at the center (core) and weakens with
distance
REGIONS
Regions based on
branches within
Buddhism would be
examples of formal
regions, because
Mahayana Buddhists
and Theraveda
Buddhists are spread
uniformly throughout
each respective area.
REGIONS
Sphere
Core
Domain
From this map of LatterDay Saints, it is possible to
create a map of the
Mormon culture region.
This is an example of a
functional region, because
the concentration of
Mormons decreases from
the core around Salt Lake
City, to the domain which
encompasses Utah, and
finally to the sphere that
reaches into Nevada,
Idaho, and New Mexico.
Why Geography?
• Geography enables us to understand our place in
the world, both figuratively and literally
• Geography provides knowledge of Earth’s
physical and human systems and the
interdependence of all things, which provides the
basis for making informed, ethical choices that
are in the best interests of our world
• Geography stimulates curiosity about our diverse
planet, which overcomes ignorance, insularity,
parochialism, and ethnocentrism
• Geography makes us better-informed citizens of
the world, better able to make wiser decisions,
and better equipped to solve issues on both a
local and global level