Unit 1: Intro to Human
Geography
Geographers ask “where” things are, and more
importantly “why” they are there
-Organize material by place and recognize that
something happening at one place can be a result of
something that happened elsewhere
What is Human Geography?
• How we organize Space and Society
• How we interact with each other in places and
across spaces
• How we make sense of others and ourselves in
our locality, region, and world
– To put into simple terms: interactions between
humans and environment and each other
• Geographers observe that people are being pulled in
different directions by two factors, globalization and
local diversity
• Globalization- set of processes that are increasing
interactions, deepening relationships and
heightening interdependence between people of
the world
•
Ex: modern technology and
communication bring cultures and economies in
contact with rest of world
Basic Geographic Concepts
• Scale- the relationships between the local, regional, national, and global
Geographers use scale to see effects of globalization on the world
and the local
Jumping Scale- taking an idea of something and viewing its effects on
different scales
• Ex: rice. . . –western cultures view rice as a simple profit making food to
sell
-eastern cultures view it as a culture building food to grow
together and to
share, never to sell
-west dominates and jumps scale to force Eastern cultures
to buy improved
strains of rice so that they grow faster
and don’t have to spend so much time
growing
Ex: fast food. . . -Asian and European cultures
view food as a culture building
experience to grow and eat
-American cultures invented fast
food in the small town of Des Plaines,
Illinois
-(McDonalds) and spread the idea
of eating on the go
-Today we see fast food
restaurants all over world
•
Ex: “Think global, act local”
-Environmentalists say this to get
people aware of the issue of global
warming
-Problem is at global scale, but can
be fixed by acting on the local scale
Space
• Space or Spatial- How things are laid out,
organized, and arranged on the Earth and how
they appear on the landscape, the physical gap
between two objects and why it exists.
•
-Use Spatial Distribution in order to map and
find patterns and relationships between places
and things.
•
Ex: Cholera mapping to find cause of the
pandemic by Dr. Snow (P. 10)
Dr. Snow Cholera Map
• Spatial Perspective-combine time and space
(history and geography) to find out Why
things are where they are and WHY things
happened when they did because of where
they are.
• Human Geographers use spatial perspective to
study the important topics today
B. The Five Themes
• 1. Location- How the geographic
position of people & things on
Earth affects what happens and
why
• Location Theory- using geography
to find out WHY something
should be located in a specific
place. EX: the best place for a
new Super Target would be?????
Because?????
• 2. Human Environment
Interaction- The effect that
humans have on their
environment (global
warming, ice cap melting)
and the effect that the
environment has on
humans (building a house
on stilts to counteract
flooding)
• 3. Region- Geographers
group like phenomena
together into what they call
regions so that they can be
easier studied and
categorized (ex:
North/South- based on
accents)
4. Place
• Human and physical
characteristics of a specific
area (what is it like there?)
• Sense of Place- humans
give emotion and meaning
to places by remembering
what happened there or
giving a place a character
(ex: What does home mean
to you?)
Place Contd.
• Perceptions of Place- way you view other
places based on pictures, books, movies, or
stories. Usually people prefer places like their
home area even if they have never been there
(ex: Where would you live if you could go
anywhere?)
Where Californians preferred
to live (below)
Where Pennsylvanians
preferred to live (above)
Movement
5. Movement- mobility of people, goods, and
ideas across the surface of the Earth
• Spatial Interaction- depends on the distance
and accessibility of places, and the
transportation and communication
connectivity among places
6. Landscape- Not one of the five themes, but very important still. Defined as
the character of a place, the natural features, human structures, and other
tangible objects that give a place a particular form.
• Cultural Landscape- visible imprint of human activity (ex: a church with a
cross on top would represent which religious group?)
• Sequent Occupance- successive groups live on the same land and each
leaves their own imprint (Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam- settled by
Arabs- left mosques and domed structures, then Germans- added their
own buildings, finally British- changed many buildings to apartment high
rises)
Hindu
crematorium
in Kenya
Dar es Salaam
• British style apartments in Dar es Salaam
C. Maps- What are they and what do they tell
us???
• Cartography- the art and science of making maps /
Cartographer- mapmaker
• Scale- amount of area covered on a map and the amount of
detail
• Fractional scale: 1:24,000 or 1/24,000 means that one unit
(inch, centimeter, foot) equals 24,000 of the same unit on the
Earth’s surface
• Written Scale- “1 inch equals 1 mile”
• Graphic Scale- bar line marked to show distance on Earth’s
surface- use a ruler to figure out distances
Projection: Earth is a sphere, so a globe is the best way to
represent it, but you can’t show detail needed on a globe
• -The scientific method of
transferring locations on
Earth’s surface to a flat map
is called Projection
• -problem is that there are
distortions when you
stretch the shape of the
earth
1. shape
2. Distance
3. Relative size 4. Direction
Interrupted Map Projection
shows how we would have to
transfer a sphere to a flat map
Types of projections:
• Equal Area Projection –
• benefits: relative size of
landmasses on map is same,
minimizes distortion in
shape of most landmasses.
• Drawbacks: polar areas, like
Greenland and Australia
become more distorted.
Robinson Projection
• benefit: displays
information across
oceans accurately.
• Drawback: land areas
are displayed small.
Mercator Projection
• - advantages: little
shape distortion,
direction consistent,
map is rectangular.
• Drawback: Poles grossly
distorted
Types of Maps:
• Reference- show
locations of places and
features
• Thematic- tell stories
such as movement with
the use of??
• Absolute location- determined by a frame of
reference (longitude/latitude)
• -used to calculate distances between places &
time zones / DOES NOT CHANGE
• GPS (Global Positioning System)- satellitebased location system, extremely accurate (ex:
cars,cell phones)
• Relative Location- a place in relation to other
human or physical features (Dacula is
Northeast of Atlanta and West of Athens)
•
-Relative locations DO CHANGE OVER
TIME- NOT STATIC!!
• Mental Maps- maps in your mind of places
that you have been or places that you have
heard of
•
-not always accurate, but used very
frequently (ex: how do you get to the
cafeteria?)
•
-used for places in our activity spacewhere you travel on your daily routine
• Remote Sensing- data collected by satellites
and aircraft that are instantly available
•
Hurricane mapping, rainfall over time,
weather channel uses this
GIS
• GIS- Geographic Information
Systems- combining layers of
spatial data into a computerized
environment to superimpose
patterns and processes
• -political geographers plot:
voters, their party, their race,
chance of voting, income, etc.
• -you can get a degree in
geography and use this program
for wildlife companies,
government agencies, or private
businesses for a living
D. Regions
• Functional Region (also
• Formal Region (also
called nodal region)called uniform region)product of interactions or
region marked by visible
movement
uniformity (everything
•
Ex: City defined by
is the same)
commuters in suburbs who
•
Ex: Climate
come to the city to work
conditions, production
• Or a store- region defined
by people who come to buy
of a particular crop, or
there
common language
• Or a newspaper- region
defined by where it
circulates
• Perceptual region (also called vernacular region)- Primarily in
the mind of a person, how you think about a region (p. 26).
Ex: Swiss culture- clocks, knives, cheese, chocolate?????
• -Some are very hard to define, such as North & South. If we
are defining these culturally, where does one start and the
other begin? Is there a line where people don’t eat fried
chicken, grits, Waffle House & speak with a southern accent?
NO, so that is why perceptual regions are in the mind.
Perceptual Region
E. Culture
• -the body of customary beliefs, material
traits, and social forms that together
constitute the distinct tradition of a group of
people
Pop culture is
represented by this
poster. What two
culture icons are
represented?
• Culture Trait- Single
attribute of a culture.
Ex: turban for some
Muslim societies
• -may be used by more
than one culture (ex:
being a Christian)
• Culture Complex- Grouping
culture traits shared by a
group of people
• -ex: herding cattle is a trait,
but cattle are used in
different ways by different
cultures
• -Europe- milked and used
for beef
• -Masai Tribe of Africafollow herds, eat blood
custard, central part of life
• Culture Hearth- area
where culture trait
develops and then
diffuses
•
Ex: Islam traced to
Mecca and Medina but
then spread elsewhere
One hearth of
agriculture is
though to be the
fertile crescent
• Independent Inventiondevelops several places
at the same time (no
clear hearth)
Culture terms:
• Culture Diffusion- spread of an idea or innovation
from its hearth to other places
• Time Distance Decay- The further a place is from the
hearth and the more time it takes to spread an idea
means that it is less likely to be adopted
• Cultural Barriers- work against diffusion (ex: India
does not eat beef, so fast food restaurants would be
less likely to spread to this country with their menus
of hamburgers)
F. Types of Diffusion
• Diffusion- process by which a characteristic spreads
across space from one place to another over time
• 2 basic types
• 1. Relocation Diffusion- the spread of an idea
through the physical movement of people from one
place to another
•
-individuals already adopted the idea or
innovation and then move and spread it in their new
location
Relocation Diffusion
Again, we see the idea of Hindu culture found in Kenya.
2. Expansion Diffusion
• Innovation or idea develops in a hearth and
remains strong there while it spreads outward
(ex: Islam out or Arabian Peninsula) – people
stay and idea moves
3 types of Expansion Diffusion:
• Contagious Diffusion- Nearly all adjacent individuals
are affected (ex: a disease)
•
Hierarchial Diffusion-Only susceptible groups
adopt the idea (ex: fashion and clothing, rap music)
•
Stimulus Diffusion-Not all ideas are readily and
directly adopted, underlying principle of idea may
though
•
(ex: India does not eat beef b/c of religion, so
McDonalds serves lamb & veggie burgers there)
A look at Diffusion
G. Geographic Concepts
• Environmental Determinism- says that human
behavior is strongly influenced or controlled
by the physical environment where they live.
•
-says that climate affects people’s
behavior
•
-the problem with this theory is that the
“ideal” climate is an opinion and will be
different for different people
• Environmental
Possibilism- counter
theory to determinism,
said that the
environment merely
serves to limit the
range of choices to a
culture- still heavily
debated
• Cultural Ecology- the
study of how and why
humans have altered
the environment and
how the environment
may have had different
effects on how societies
developed – ex: why did
some early societies
thrive while others
were slow to develop?
• Political Ecology- Concerned with
environmental consequences of our political
and economic arrangements and
understandings
Debris found on a beach is a result of human activities
• Distribution- the arrangement of a feature in spaceOur desks are close together, that is their distribution
• Density- The frequency in which something occurs in
space- could be anything- cars, volcanoes, schools,
etc.
• Pattern- Geometric arrangement of objects in spacecould be linear, like houses in a neighborhood street
• Time space compression- reduction in time it takes
for something to reach another place
• Ex: 100 years ago communication between USA and
Australia would be in the form of a letter that would
take months to travel by railroad, then ship, then
perhaps horse drawn buggy. Today we just send an
email.
• -The time it takes to communicate between two
spaces has been compressed or shortened due to
technology!