Introductory chapter quiz Flashcards
What is Geography the study of?
place & space
Geography studies the…[blank]
location & distribution of features on the earth’s surface. It also studies human activity, the natural environment, and the relationship between the two.
What questions does Geography answer?
Where? Why?
Realms (3 things)
~Realms are based on spatial criteria
~They are the largest geographic units into which the world can be divided
~Based on both physical (natural) and human (cultural) features
What are realms the result of?
the interaction between human societies and natural environments.
What do realms represent?
the most comprehensive and encompassing definition of the great clusters of humankind in the world today.
Would the world have been divided up the same way in 1491?
No. (b/c Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492).
Transition zones
Mark the contact between geographic realms.
spatial change
where peripheries of two adjacent realms or regions join.
gradual shift
zones are marked by this in the characteristics that distinguish neighboring realms.
Regions.
Areas of the earth’s surface marked by certain properties.
Regions are based on criteria we establish. What is the criteria? (3 things)
~Human (cultural) properties
~Physical (natural) characteristics
~or both
Which is smaller and more detailed? Regions or realms?
Regions.
What to all regions have? (3 things)
~An area
~Boundaries
~Location
Formal region
~Marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one or more phenomena.
~Also called a uniform region or homogeneous region.
Formal Regions example
English language, global spread
Functional Region (nodal region) —> 3 things.
~A region marked less by its sameness than its dynamic internal structure.
~A spatial system focused on a central core
~A region formed by a set of places and their functional integration
Hinterland (2 things)
~Literally means ‘country behind’.
~A term that applies to the service area ‘behind’ (often surrounding) an urban center.
Urban Cebter
The focus of goods and services (often ‘the market’) produced in the hinterland, and is the latter’s dominant focal point as well
Landforms (6 types)
~Continental drift ~Tectonic plates ~Subduction zones ~Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ ~Weathering ~Erosion
Climate (3 things)
~Hydrologic cycle
~Precipitation patterns
~Climate regions
Climate regions of the world (6 types)
~Humid Equatorial Climates ~Dry Climates ~Humid Temperate Climates ~Humid Cold Climates ~Cold Polar ~Highland Climates
Population distribution clusters (4 clusters)
~East Asia
~Europe
~South Asia
~Eastern North America
Culture
Shared patterns of learned behavior.
Components of Culture (3 things)
~Beliefs
~Institutions
~Technology
Cultural Geography
A wide-ranging and comprehensive field that studies spatial aspects of human cultures.
Cultural Geography components (5 things)
~Cultural landscapes ~Cultural hearths ~Cultural diffusion ~Language and religion ~Ethnicity
Cultural Landscape
The composite of human imprints on the earth’s surface.
Culture is the…[blank]
agent.
Natural environment is the…[blank]
medium.
Cultural Hearth
The source areas from which radiated ideas, innovations, and ideologies that change the world beyond
Sequent Occupance
The places that come after the original occupance. Almost like different layers (places) of history.
Political Geography (3 things)
~A subfield within the human branch of geography
~The study of the interaction of geographical area and political process
~The spatial analysis of political phenomena and processes
State (3 things)
~A politically organized territory
~Administered by a sovereign government
~Recognized by a significant portion of the international community.
A state must also contain: (3 things)
~a permanent resident population
~an organized economy
~ a functioning internal circulation system
A nation is not a state…[continue] (2 things and 1 example)
~Organized people w/o a home
~Not independent; is a territory they inhabit
~Ex: native americans
Nation - State (def. & example)
~A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity
~Ex: Japan
Patterns of development: Economic conditions (World Bank groupings) [4 things]
~High-income
~Upper-middle-income
~Lower-middle-income
~Low-income
Patterns of development: Core versus peripheral areas (3 things)
~Issues of power:
core has power over the periphery
~Advantage
~Exploitation
Globalization
The shrinkage of differences
Absolute location
The position or place of a certain item on the surface of the earth as expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude.
Cartogram
A specially transformed map not based on traditional representations of scale or area.
Climate
The long-term conditions of aggregate weather over a region, summarized by averages and measures of variability.
Continental drift
The slow movement of continents controlled by the process associated with plate tectonics
Core areas
Core refers to the center, heart, or focus. The core area of a nation-state is constituted by the national heartland, the largest population cluster, the most productive region, and the part of the country with the greatest centrality and accessibility-probably containing the capital city as well.
Cultural landscape
The forms and artifacts sequentially placed on the natural landscape by the activities of various human occupants. By this progressive imprinting of the human presence, the physical (natural) landscape is modified into the cultural landscape, forming an interacting unity between the two.
Desertification
Process of desert expansion into neighboring steppelands as a result of human degradation of fragile semiarid environments.
Development
The economic, social, and institutional growth of national states.
Economic geography
The field of geography that focuses on the diverse ways in which people earn a living and on how the goods and the services they produce are expressed and organized spatially.
European state model
A state consisting of a legally defined territory inhabited by a population governed from a capital city by a representative government.
Formal regions
A type of region marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one or more phenomena; also called uniform region or homogeneous region.
Functional region
A region marked less by its sameness than by its dynamic internal structure; because it usually focuses on a central node, also called nodal region or focal region.
Geographic realms
The basic spatial unit in our world regionalization scheme. Each realm is defined in terms of a synthesis of its total human geography-a composite of its leading cultural, economic, historical, political, and appropriate environmental features.
Glaciations
repeated advances of continental ice sheets.
Ice age
A stretch of geologic time during which the earth’s average atmospheric temperature is lowered; causes the equator ward expansion of continental ice sheets in the higher latitudes and growth of mountain glaciers in and around the highlands of the lower latitudes.
Interglacials
ice sheet contractions
natural landscapes
the array of land forms that constitutes the Earth’s surface and the physical features that mark them.
Pacific Ring of Fire
zone of cultural instability along tectonic plate boundaries, marked by earthquakes and volcanic activity, that ring the Pacific Ocean Basin.
Periphery
have-not components of a national or regional system.
Population distribution
the way people have arranged themselves in geographic space.
Regional concept
the geographic study of regions and regional distinctions.
Regional disparities
the spatial unevenness in standard of living that occurs within a country, whose “average,” overall income statistics invariably mask the differences that exist between the extremes of the wealthy core and the poorer periphery.
Regional geography
Approach to geographic study based on the spatial unit of the region. Allows for an all-encompassing view of the world, because it utilizes and integrates information from geography’s topical (systematic) fields.
Relative location
the regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places. Distance, accessibility, and connectivity affect relative location.
Spatial systems
the components and interactions of a functional region, which is defined by the areal extent of those interactions.
systematic geography
topical geography: cultural, political, economic geography, and the like.
Tectonic plates
Plates are bonded portions of the earth’s mantle and crust. More than a dozen such plates exist, most of continental proportions, and they are in motion. Where they meet, one slides under the other, crumpling the surface crust and producing significant volcanic and earthquake activity; a major mountain building force.
urbanization
the proportion of a country’s population living in urban places is its level of urbanization. the process involves the movement to, and the clustering of, people in towns and cities- a major force in every geographic realm today. Another kind of urbanization occurs when an expanding city absorbs rural countryside and transforms it into suburbs; in the case of cities in disadvantaged countries, this also generates peripheral shantytowns.
