Basic Concepts Flashcards
Absolute Location
The precise spot where something is according to a system.
Relative Location
A description of where something is in relation to other things.
Site
Characteristics at the immediate location.
Situation
The location of the place relative to its surroundings and its connectivity to other places.
Toponym
A place name.
Direction
Used in order to describe where things are in relation to each other.
Distance
The amount of space between two things or people.
Scale
The ratio between the size of things in the real world and the size of the same things on the map.
Built environment
The physical artifacts that humans have created and that form part of the landscape.
Sequent occupance
The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the
cumulative cultural landscape.
Environmental determinisim
Climate is the determining factor in progress, energy, and the culture of people/human behavior is strongly affected by and controlled or determined by the physical environment.
Possibilism
The environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment.
Spatial interaction
A basic concept that considers how locations interact with each other in terms of the movement of people, freight, services, energy, or information.
Accessibility
How quickly and easily people in one location can interact with people in another location.
Connectivity
How well two locations are tied together by roads or other links.
Distance decay/Friction of distance
When things are farther apart they are less connected.
Time-space compression
The shrinking of relative distance between locations because of improved methods of transportation and communication.
Distribution
The way a phenomenon is spread out over an area.
Arithmetic Density
The total number of objects in an area.
Physiological Density
The number of people per unit of area suitable for agriculture.
Dispersed/Scattered Pattern
Phenomena are spread out over a large area.
Clustered/Agglomerated Pattern
Phenomena are arranged in a group or concentrated in an area.
Formal Region
Uniformity in one or more physical or cultural features.
Functional Region (Nodal)
Spatial system defined by the interactions and connections that give it an organizational basis.
Perpetual/Vernacular
Based on how people view a place.
Map Scale
The ratio between the size of things in the real world and those on the map.
Distortion
The act of twisting or altering something out of its true, natural, or original state.
Projection
The process of projecting a curved surface on a flat plane.
Latitude
The distance north or south of the equator.
Longitude
The distance east or west of the prime meridian.
Prime Meridian
An imaginary line that runs from pole to pole through Greenwich, England.
International Date Line
A line that roughly follows the prime meridian but makes deviations to accommodate international boundaries.
Thematic Map
Show spatial aspects of information or of a phenomenon (include choropleth, dot distribution, isoline, and cartograms).
Dot Map
Show the specific location of something on a map. Each dot represents a quantity and does not have to be a dot!
Choropleth Map
Use colors or patterns to show spatial data. Often show quantitative data.
Isoline Map
Use lines to connect points of equal data across space.
Cartogram Map
The sizes of countries are shown according to some specific statistic.
Proportional Symbol Map
A type of thematic map that uses map symbols that vary in size to represent a quantitative variable.
Time zone
An area that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes.
Geographic Information System (GIS)
Integrated computer program for handling and analyzing data that is specifically referenced to Earth’s surface.
Global Positioning System (GPS)
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.
Remote sensing
Gathers information from satellites that orbit the earth or other craft above the atmosphere.
