Geographic Perspective
 On
a piece of paper, quick
write what comes to your
mind when you think about
“geographic perspective”

A geographic perspective is a way of looking
at and understanding the world. When you
view the world through the lens of
geography, you are asking who, what, where,
and when people, places, and things are
distributed across the surface of the earth,
and why and how they got there.

In other words, it means that you are
analyzing something within its spatial,
historical, cultural, political, and physical
contexts. You can study anything that has
some spatial component to it from this
perspective. All things—whether they are
rivers, cities, populations of people, or
events—exist in a particular place and in a
particular time for a set of specific reasons

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/05/g68/in
dex.html
In
what ways are
Humans and the Earth
connected to each
other?
How
do perspectives
help us analyze
people, places and
the environment?
SPATIAL
PERSPECTIVE
 How
do spatial
perspectives help us to
analyze people, places
and environments?

I. The Spatial Perspective
A. Maps: the cartographic tradition has always been unique to
geography.
B. Scale
1. Global/Regional/Local
2. Interaction across scales
C. Location
1. Absolute Location: latitude and longitude coordinates
2. Relative Location: location in relation to other places
3. Site vs. Situation
a. Site: actual place and its physical characteristics
b. Situation: external reference or context of the place
D. Distance
1. Absolute Distance: measured in a standard metric
2. Relative Distance: measured in time or economics
E. Direction
1. Absolute Direction: North, South, East, West
2. Relative Direction: more colloquial, i.e. "the deep south," or
"the far east
II. Insights of Geography
A. Places have location, direction, and distance with
respect to other places
B. Scale is important--places may be large or small
C. A place has both physical structure and cultural
content
D. The characteristics of places develop and change
over time
E. Places interact with other places
F. The content of places is rationally structured
G. Places may be generalized into regions of
similarities and differences
 How
do spatial
perspectives help us to
analyze people, places
and environments?