Unit One Key Issue #2
How do we make these maps?
 GIS (Geographic Information
Systems)
 Remote Sensing – uses satellites or
planes to take still pictures of the
earth’s surface
 GPS – uses multiple satellites and a
person on the ground to convey
absolute location
 The Township and Range
System was created by the US
Land Ordinance of 1785.
 Each township is divided into 36
sections each 1 mile by 1 mile
and numbered 1 in the NE and 36
in the SE.
 The Homestead Act of 1863
encouraged the settlement of the
West by giving each settler a
quarter section or 160 acres of
land.
Key Issue #2:
Why is Each Point on Earth Unique?
 Place: Unique Location as a Feature
 Regions: Areas of Unique
Characteristics
 Spatial Association
Place: Unique Location as a Feature
 Geographers think about where particular places are
located & the combination of features that make each
place or region distinct.
 4 Ways to Identify LOCATION (the position that a
place occupies on Earth’s surface)
 Place Names
 Toponym- the name given to a place on earth
 Site
 Situation
 Mathematical Location
PLACE NAMES
 Toponym- the name given to a place on the earths surface
 Any ideas to the origin of some local Toponyms?
 El Dorado – City of gold sought by Spanish explorers
 Cerro Gordo – From the Battle of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican
American war
 MacArthur, Eisenhower, Stephan Decatur
Site
 The physical characteristics of a place
 Important site characteristics?
 Climate, water sources, soil, vegetation, latitude & elevation
 Why do you think Decatur was a good site for settlement
in the early 1800s?
Situation
 The location of a place relative to other places, knowing this
helps us in 2 ways
 1. situation helps us find an unfamiliar place by comparing it to
a familiar one.
 Examples?
 2. situation also helps us understand the importance of a
location
 What are some important cities throughout World History? Why are they
important?
 Constantinople, Paris, London, New York, Beijing, Tenochtitlan,
Rome, Hong Kong, New Dehli, Alexandria, Mecca, Timbuktu
 What makes Decaturs Situation unique? Why is it here?
Mathematical Location
 Absolute location of any place can be described precisely by
meridians and parallels
 Meridians (lines of longitude)
 Prime meridian (Int Date Line)
 Parallels (lines of latitude)
 The equator
Bell Work 1/22
 What is the difference between a place’s site and a places situation?
 Does the physical geography of a place completely control its destiny?
Regions: Unique Characteristics
 Cultural Landscape – a unique combination of
social relationships and physical processes
(language, religion, agriculture, industry, climate,
vegetation, etc.)
 Each region = a distinctive landscape
 People = the most important agents of change to
Earth’s surface
“Culture is the agent, the natural area the medium,
the cultural landscape is the result.” –Carl Sauer,
proponent of Regional Studies approach
Types of Regions
 Anything larger than a point and smaller
than the entire planet
 Formal Regions (uniform/homogenous
region)
 A region where everyone shares in common 1
or more distinct characteristics
 Examples?


Japan, Tibet, The United States
Within the U.S Corn & Rust Belts
Types of Regions
 Functional (nodal) regions
 An area organized around a node or focal point connected
by transportation, communication or economic systems
 Examples?

the circulation area of a newspaper, or the reach of a radio or
television station
Functional Region: TV Markets
Types of Regions
 Vernacular or Perceptual
Regions
 A place that people believe
exists as part of their
cultural identities
 Examples?

East and West end of
Decatur, the Deep South,
the Southside or North side
of Chicago, the middle east
 Activity -Mental Mapping
Culture
 Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to care for”
 Two aspects:
 What people care about
 Beliefs, values, and customs
 What people take care of
 Earning a living; obtaining food, clothing, and shelter
Cultural Ecology
 The geographic study of human–environment relationships
 Two perspectives:
 Environmental determinism – Argued that the general
laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical
sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical
environment caused human activities.
 Possibilism
 Modern geographers generally reject environmental
determinism in favor of possibilism – The physical environment
may set limits on human actions but that people have the ability
to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of
action from many alternatives.