Human Geo. Midterm Flashcards
Human geography
is the branch of Geography that deals with the study of people and their communities, cultures, economies, and interactions with the environment by studying their relations with and across space and place.
Human geography focuses on:
How people make places
How we organize space and society
How we interact with each other
How we make sense of ourselves and others.
map
is a scale model of the real world, made small enough to work with on a desk or computer(can be a hasty here’s-how to-get-to-the-party sketch, an elaborate work of art, or a precise)
A map serves two purposes
It is a tool for storing reference material and a tool for communicating geographic information… reference tool. A map helps us to find the shortest route between two places and to avoid getting lost along the way(to learn where in the world something is found)…..communications tool, a map is often the best means for depicting the distribution of human activities or physical features, as well as for thinking about reasons underlying a certain characteristic or feature. In this sense, we use maps to tell stories about the world.
Reference and thematic maps
the two tools that geographers use to map the world
Reference maps
are generally separated into two categories, physical and political
Physical reference maps
show us physical features of a place
political reference maps
show us boundaries, major cities, and capitals
thematic maps
will tell us “stories” about the distribution of certain geographic phenomena around the world
mental map
is a person’s point-of-view perception of their area of interaction (can also include areas never heard of before but have been read about or seen on TV)
activity space
where a person goes throughout their daily routine
map scale
is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground.(concept is complicated by the curvature of the Earth’s surface, which forces scale to vary across a map)
Map scale is presented in three ways
- Ratio or Fraction Scale: Ex. 1:24,000 or 1/24,000
- Written Scale: Ex. 1 inch equals 1 mile
- Graphic Scale: Usually consists of a bar line marked to show distance on Earth’s surface
map projection
is a transformation of locations from the surface of a sphere into locations on a plane (flat surface)
Maps cannot be created without map projections
All map projections necessarily distort the surface in some fashion. (distance, Direct, shape, size)
Geographic grid
is a system of imaginary arcs drawn in a grid pattern on Earth’s surface.
Meridians
are arcs drawn between the North and South poles
Longitude
each meridian is numbered and allows you to find north and south location
prime meridian
0º longitude
international date line
180 degrees longitude
Parallels
are arcs drawn parallel to the equator and at right angles to meridians
latitude
system of each parallel is numbered and allows you to find east and west locations
equator
0 degrees