Ch.1 AP Human Geography (Thinking Geographically) Flashcards
Ch.1 AP Human Geography : The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography
Eratosthenes
The head librarian at Alexandria during the third century B.C.; he was one of the first cartographers. Performed a remarkably accurate computation of the earth’s circumference. He is also credited with coining the term “geography.”
Geography
The study of the earth’s surface, climate, continents, countries, peoples, industries, and products.
Geo
root meaning earth
graphy
greek root that means “to write”.
Human Geography
One of the two major divisions of geography along with physical geography; the spatial analysis of human population, their cultures, activities, and landscapes.
Physical Geography
One of the two major divisions of systematic geography; the spatial analysis of the structure, processes, and location of Earth’s natural phenomena such as climate, soil, plants, animals, and topography.
Distribution
The arrangement of a feature in space, is made up of 3 properties : density, concentration, and pattern.
Density
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area(km, miles, acres etc.). One of the 3 properties of distribution along with concentration and pattern.
Concentration
The extent of a feature’s spread over space. Can be either clustered(relative) or dispersed.
Pattern
The geometric arrangement of objects in space. One of the three propertied of distribution.
Arithmetic Density
The total number of people divided by the total land area. An aspect of density.
Physiological density
The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture.
Agricultural Density
The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture, a high ratio means that there is inefficient agriculture in that region.
Arable land
Land suitable for growing crops, is one of the fectors determining physiological density.
Housing Density
number of dwelling units per unit of area, a high amount means that there may be overcrowding.
Map
a two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth’s surface or a portion of it
Cartography
science or art of making maps, tis awesome.
Stick Charts
Earliest form of navigational or oceanographic map made of bamboo and shells, they were made by the Polynesian people among the south pacific islands. Shells represented Islands and palm strips represented patterns of waves between Islands.
Anaximander
Greek philosopher and student of Thales, made an early World map based on information of sailors , however he INCORRECTLY made the map a cylinder.
Thales
Introduced geometry to the Greeks; figured out how to indirectly measure the height of a pyramid, diameter of a circle, right angles in circles. Taught Anaximander.
Hecateus
Greek who created the FIRST Geography book around 500 B.C.E.
Aristotle
First to demonstrate that the world was spherical(circular shadow on the moonduring an elipse, blah blah, blah)
Ptolemy
Roman geographer-astronomer and author of “Guide to Geography” which included maps containing a grid system of latitude and longitude. Were not improved on for a thousand years.
Guide to Geography
Ptolemy’s 8 volume book that codified the principles of mapmaking.
Fei Xiu
“The father of Chinese Cartography” also known as Phei Hsiu.
Remote Sensing
The acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.
GIS
Geographic Information System, A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data(Topography, political boundaries,soil etc).
GPS
Global Positioning System., a navigational system involving satellites and computers that can determine the latitude and longitude of a receiver on Earth by computing the time difference for signals from different satellites to reach the receiver.
Geradus Mercator
One of the first people to produce a world map that showed withe relative accuracy, the general outline of the continents., printed the first map that arrived the names of both the continents of N. and S. America and made map a that showed asia and N. america were separate continents
Abraham Ortelius
Who published 17 supplementary maps under the title Additamentrum theatri Orbis terrarum(First Atlas). Also , with Sir Frances Bacon both noted that the coastlines of certain continents seemed to fit together when placed near each other on a map
Projection
method of transferring locations on the Earth to a flat surface distortions that result include shape, distance, direction, and relative size.
Equal Area Projections
A map projections that shows the sizes of regions in correct relation to one another but distorts shapes,
Interruption
A feature of equal area projection that separates the Eastern and Western Hemispheres into two pieces.
Robinson Projection
An Uninterrupted Projection that attempts to balance several possible projection errors. It does not maintain completely accurate area, shape, distance, or direction, but it minimizes errors in each.
Mercator Projection
An Uninterrupted true conformal cylindrical map projection, this projection is particularly useful for navigation because it maintains accurate direction.Famous for their distortion that makes the landmasses at the poles oversized making high latitude places look much larger than they are.