Geography, Its Nature and Perspectives Flashcards
ABSOLUTE DISTANCE
A distance that can be measured with a standard unit of length, such as a mile or kilometer.
ABSOLUTE LOCATION
The exact position of an object or place, measured within the spatial coordinates of a grid system.
ACCESSIBILITY
The relative ease with which a destination may be reached from some other place.
AGGREGATION
To come together into a mass, sum, or whole.
ANTHROPOGENIC
Human-induced changes on the natural environment.
AZIMUTHAL PROJECTION
A map projection in which the plane is the most developable surface.
BREAKING POINT
The outer edge of a city’s sphere of influence, used in the law of retail gravitation to describe the area of a city’s hinterlands that depend on that city for its retail supplies.
CARTOGRAMS
A type of thematic map that transforms space such that the political unit with the greatest value for some type of data is represented by the largest relative area,
CARTOGRAPHY
The theory and practice of making visual representations of Earth’s surface in the forms of maps.
CHOROPLETH MAP
A thematic map that uses tones or colors to represent spatial data as average values per unit area.
COGNITIVE MAP
An image of a portion of Earth’s surface that an individual creates in his or her mind. Cognitive maps can include knowledge of actual locations and relationships among locations as well as personal perceptions and preferences of a particular place.
COMPLEMENTARITY
The degree of economic social, cultural, or political connection between two places.
CONTAGIOUS DIFFUSION
The spread of a disease, an innovation, or cultural traits through direct contact with another person or another place.
COORDINATE SYSTEM
A standard grid, composed of lines of latitude and longitude, used to determine the absolute location of any object, place, or feature on Earth’s surface.
CULTURAL ECOLOGY, aka. NATURE-SOCIETY GEOGRAPHY
The study of the interactions between societies and the natural environments in which they live.
CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
The human-modified natural landscape specifically containing the imprint of a particular culture or society.
DISTANCE DECAY EFFECT
The decrease in interaction between two phenomena, places, or people as the distance between them increases.
DOT MAPS
Thematic maps that use points to show the precise locations of specific observations or occurrences, such as crimes, car accidents, or births.
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
A systematic approach to physical geography that looks at the interaction between Earth’s physical systems and processes on a global scale.
ENVIRONMENTAL GEOGRAPHY
The intersection between human and physical geography, which explores the spatial impacts humans have on the physical environment and vice versa.
ERATOSTHENES
The head librarian at Alexandra during the third century B.C; one of the first cartographers. Performed a remarkably accurate computation of Earth’s circumference. He is also credited with coining the term geography.
EXPANSION DIFFUSION
The spread of ideas, innovations, fashion, or other phenomena to surrounding areas through contact and exchange.
FERTILE CRESCENT
The name given to the crescent-shaped area of fertile land stretching from lower Nile Valley along the east Mediterranean coast and into Syria and present-day Iraq where agriculture and early civilization first began about 8,000 B.C.
FORMAL REGION
Definition of regions based on common themes such as similarities language, climate, land use, etc.
FRICTION OF DISTANCE
A measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between two places.
FULLER PROJECTION
A type of map projection that maintains the accurate size and shape of landmasses but completely rearranges direction such that the four cardinal directions no longer have any meaning.
FUNCTIONAL REGION
Definition of regions based on common interaction (or function), for example, a boundary line drawn around the circulation of a particular newspaper.
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS)
A set of computer tools used to capture, store, transform, analyze, and display geographic data.
GEOGRAPHIC SCALE
The scale at which a geographers analyzes a particular phenomenon, for example: global, national, census tract, neighborhood, etc. Generally, the finer the scale of analysis, the richer the level of detail in the findings.
GEOID
The actual shape of the Earth, which is rough and absolute, or slightly squashed. Earth’s diameter is longer around the equator than along the north-south meridians.
GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM
A set of satellites used to help determine location anywhere on Earth’s surface with a portable electronic device.
GRAVITY MODEL
A mathematical formula that describes the level of interaction between two places, based on the size of their populations and their distance from each other.
HIERARCHICAL DIFFUSION
A type of diffusion in which something is transmitted between places because of a physical or cultural community between those places.
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
The study of the spatial variation in the patterns and processes related to human activity.