CH 1: Intro to Human Geography Flashcards
Geography
- study of spaces and places that people create
- how we use and shape the environment
- political, economic, population, urban, cultural
Globalization
- set of processes that increase interactions, deepen relationships, and accelerate connectedness across country borders
- includes migration, flow of ideas, make/trade
Arable Land
- farmable land
- only 4% of Norway is arable yet country is well-fed (imports)
- Kenya, most of arable land goes towards cash crops (coffee and tea) instead of feeding pop (export it)
Physical geography
- study of spatial and material characteristics of the physical environment
Geographer Marvin Mikesell
- geography = “why of where”
- how does where something happens affect what happens
Cholera
- Cholera mainly in India til beg. of 19th century
- diffused (1826-1823) to China, Japan, East Africa, Med. Europe
- second outbreak (1842-1862), England hit
- 1854, John Snow, anesthesiologist, London
- mapped cases in Soho
- deaths clustered around water pump, found it was spread through contaminated water
Location
- geographical position of people and things on Earth’s surface
Absolute: precise location, defined by coordinates
Relative: location in relation to another place or attribute
Location Theory
- something geographers use to answer where or why things are located where it is
Human Environment Interactions
- understand relationship between humans and physical world
ex) draining Florida Everglades -> more hurricane destruction, flattening dunes -> humans build seawalls, etc.
Environmental Determinism
- Aristotle started it, w/ opinions on Asians + Northern Europeans
- long lasting impact -> 1940 Ellsworth Huntington - Principles of Human Geography
- the idea that individual and collective human behavior is fundamentally affected by or controlled by the physical environment
ex) Europeans are leaders because of the climate there
Possibilism
- people shape environments and natural environment only limits ranges of choices available to a culture
- society’s choices depend on what its members need and what tech is available
Carrying Capacity
- theory that an area of land can only support a certain number of people and species
- with tech, is possible to transcend limitations
Cultural Ecology
- concerned with culture as a system of adaptation to and alteration of the environment
Political Ecology
- concerned with the environmental consequences of dominant political- economic arrangements and assumptions
Region
- an area of Earth with a degree of similarity that differentiates from surrounding areas
- ways of organizing people and places
Types of Regions
Formal: shared trait, either physical or cultural, karst China region or shares one or more cultural traits
Functional: area sharing common purpose, has nodes (places that are central connecting pts.), shared political, social, or economic purpose, trade regions
Perceptual: images people carry in their minds based their knowledge of people, places, and things, ex) the South, changes over time, use to make sence of world
- Vernacular: perceptual, but has such strong significance to people in the region it becomes their identifier
- Zelinsky made a map based on telephone directories
Sense of place
- when people infuse a place with meaning and emotion, remembering special events
- “feeling of home”
Movement
- mobility of people, goods, and ideas
- expression of the interconnectedness of places
- diffusion and migration
Diffusion
- spread of an idea, innovation, or technology from its hearth (origin) to other people and places
- spatial interaction depends on distances between places, accessibility, and connectivity
- depends on time and distance from hearth, or pre existing ideas/taboos in area
Time-Distance Decay
- 1970, Swedish geographer Torsten Hagerstrand
- the further a. place is from a hearth, the less likely an innovation will spread there
Types of Diffusion
Expansion: an innovation/idea that develops in a hearth and remains strong there while spreading outward ex) Islam
- Contagious: when expansion happens as result of person-to-person contact
- Hierarchical: type of expansion that begins with the “knowers” and then diffuses through linked people in pyramid ex) Under Armour and heat gear
- Stimulus: expansion but two cultural traits blend to create distinct trait ex) McDonalds in India
Relocation: spreads from hearth by action of people moving and taking the idea/innovation with, ex) ethnic neighborhoods
Cultural Landscape
- the visible imprint of human activity on the land
- Carl Sauer - “forms superimposed on the physical landscape”
- Derwent Whittlesey - sequent occupance
- Tanzanian Dar es Salaam pg. 16
Scale
- distance on a map compared to the distance on Earth
- spatial extent of something
- how we interpret patterns and factors of human and physical phenomena
Context
- the bigger picture in which a human or physical geography phenomena takes place
Cartography
- the art and science of making maps
Types of maps
Reference: show locations of places and geographical features, absolute locations
Thematic: tell stories, spatial distribution (cluster/disperse)
Activity Spaces
- spaces we move through routinely
Remote Sensing
- method of collecting data or info through satellites or drones etc.
- integrated into geographic information systems that can show geographic data
Culture
- a group of belief systems, norms, and values practiced by a people
Cultural Trait
- single attribute of a culture that can be identified and described ex) wearing a turban
Cultural Complex
- distinct combination of culture traits
