CH 1: Intro to Human Geography

Question 1

Geography

Answer 1

• study of spaces and places that people create
• how we use and shape the environment
  
  • political, economic, population, urban, cultural

Question 2

Globalization

Answer 2

• set of processes that increase interactions, deepen relationships, and accelerate connectedness across country borders
• includes migration, flow of ideas, make/trade

Question 3

Arable Land

Answer 3

• 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)

Question 4

Physical geography

Answer 4

• study of spatial and material characteristics of the physical environment

Question 5

Geographer Marvin Mikesell

Answer 5

• geography = “why of where”
  
  • how does where something happens affect what happens

Question 6

Cholera

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

Location

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

Location Theory

Answer 8

• something geographers use to answer where or why things are located where it is

Question 9

Human Environment Interactions

Answer 9

• understand relationship between humans and physical world
  ex) draining Florida Everglades -> more hurricane destruction, flattening dunes -> humans build seawalls, etc.

Question 10

Environmental Determinism

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

Possibilism

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

Carrying Capacity

Answer 12

• theory that an area of land can only support a certain number of people and species
• with tech, is possible to transcend limitations

Question 13

Cultural Ecology

Answer 13

• concerned with culture as a system of adaptation to and alteration of the environment

Question 14

Political Ecology

Answer 14

• concerned with the environmental consequences of dominant political- economic arrangements and assumptions

Question 15

Region

Answer 15

• an area of Earth with a degree of similarity that differentiates from surrounding areas
• ways of organizing people and places

Question 16

Types of Regions

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Sense of place

Answer 17

• when people infuse a place with meaning and emotion, remembering special events
• “feeling of home”

Question 18

Movement

Answer 18

• mobility of people, goods, and ideas
• expression of the interconnectedness of places
• diffusion and migration

Question 19

Diffusion

Answer 19

• 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

Question 20

Time-Distance Decay

Answer 20

• 1970, Swedish geographer Torsten Hagerstrand
• the further a. place is from a hearth, the less likely an innovation will spread there

Question 21

Types of Diffusion

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Cultural Landscape

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

Scale

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

Context

Answer 24

• the bigger picture in which a human or physical geography phenomena takes place

Question 25

Cartography

Answer 25

• the art and science of making maps

Question 26

Types of maps

Answer 26

Reference: show locations of places and geographical features, absolute locations
Thematic: tell stories, spatial distribution (cluster/disperse)

Question 27

Activity Spaces

Answer 27

• spaces we move through routinely

Question 28

Remote Sensing

Answer 28

• method of collecting data or info through satellites or drones etc.
• integrated into geographic information systems that can show geographic data

Question 29

Culture

Answer 29

• a group of belief systems, norms, and values practiced by a people

Question 30

Cultural Trait

Answer 30

• single attribute of a culture that can be identified and described ex) wearing a turban

Question 31

Cultural Complex

Answer 31

• distinct combination of culture traits