Unit 1 - Thinking Geographically Flashcards
Considers the arrangement of the phenomena being Studied across the surface of the earth. Important considerations of this approach include location, distance, direction, orientation, pattern, and interconnection.
Spatial Approach
The study of spatial characteristics of various elements of the physical environment.
Physical Geography
The study of the spatial characteristics of humans and human activities.
Human Geography
The precise spot where something is according to some system, typically found using longitude and latitude.
Absolute Location
The distance north and south of the equator.
Latitude
An imaginary line that circles the globe exactly halfway between the North and South Poles.
Equator
The distance east or west of the prime meridian
Longitude
An imaginary line that runs from pole to pole through Greenwich, England.
Prime Meridian
Roughly follows the prime meridian but makes deviations to accommodate international boundaries.
International Date Line
A description of where something is in relation to other things.
Relative Location
How well two locations are tied together by roads or other links.
Connectivity
How quickly and easily people in one location can interact with people in another location.
Accesibility
Abandoned settelments of the western United States. Their good relative locations lost the advantages that they once had, however, their absolute locations remain the same.
Ghost Towns
Refers to the specific human and physical characteristics of a location.
Place
A group of places in the same area that share a characteristic.
Region
Characteristics at the immidate location (soil type, climate, labor force, human structures, etc…)
Site
The location of a place relative to its surroundings and other places.
Situation
How humans percive an area based on their personal belifes and emotional connection.
Sense of Place
Place names– provides insights into the physical geography, the history, or the culture of the location
Toponyms
The measurement of how far or near things are to one another.
Distance
The degree of nearness.
Proximity
The contact, movement, and flow of things between locations. Connections may be physical (roads) or through information (radios and Internet).
Spatial Interaction
When things are farther apart, they tend to be less well connected.
Friction of Distance
The idea that when things are farther apart, they tend to be less well connected.
Friction of Distance
The number of something in a specivically defined area (the number of people per square mile).
Density
The way a phenomenon is spread out over an area.
Distribution
Matching patterns of distribution that indicates two or more phenomena may be related, or associated with one another.
Spatial Association
The connection and exchange between humans and the natural world.
Human-Environment Interaction
How humans adapt to the environment.
Cultural Ecology
The belief that landforms and the climate are the most powerful forces shaping human behavior.
Environmental Dererminism
A view that acknowledges limits on the effects of the natural environment and focuses more in the role that human culture plays.
Possibilism
The task of defining and describing landscapes.
Landscape Analysis
The act of physically visiting a location, place, or reigeon and recording, firsthand, information there.
Field Observation
All the information that can be tied to a specific location.
Spatial Data
Professional images captured from planes within the atmosphere.
Aerial Photography
The physical artifacts that humans have created and that form part of the landscape (buildings, roads, signs, fences, etc…).
Built Environment
Anything built by humans.
Cultural Landscape
The general arrangements of things being studied.
Patterns
The repeted sequence of events that create patterns.
Processes
The ratio is the between the size of things in the real world and the size of those same things on a map.
Scale
The way a map communicates the ratio of its size to the size of what it represents.
Cartographic Scale
Sometimes refered to as relative scale and refers to the amount of territory that the map represents.
Geographic Scale
Sometimes refered to as geographical scale and refers to the amount of territory that the map represents.
Relative Scale
Designed for people to refer to for general information about places.
Refrence Maps
Show and label human-created boundaries and designations, such as counties, states, cities, and capitals.
Political Maps
Show and label natural features such as mountains, rivers, and deserts.
Physical Map
Show and label highways,streets, and alleys.
Road Map
Show and label property lines and details of land ownership.
Plat Maps
Illustrations used in books and advertisements to show specific locations mentioned in the text.
Locator Maps
Show spatial aspects of information or of a phenomenon.
Thematic Map
Uses various colors, shades of one color, or paterns to show the location and distribution of spatial data.
Choropleth Maps
Used to show the specific location and distribution of something across the territory of a map. Each dot represents a specific quantity.
Dot Distribution Maps
Uses symbols of different sizes to indicate different amounts of something. Larger sizes indicate a larger quantity while smaller sized indicate a smaler quality.
Graduated Symbol Maps
Uses lines that connect points of equal value to depict variations in data across space
Isoline Maps
A type of isoline map – points of equal elevation are connected, creationg contours that depict surface features.
Topographic Maps
The sizes of countries (or states, counties, or another areal unit) are shown according to some specific statistic.
Cartogram
The process to showing a curved surface on a flat surcace.
Map Projection
Representations of reality or theories
Geogaphic Models
Projection of a map of the world on to a cylinder in such a way that all the parallels of latitude have the same length as the equator, used especially for marine charts and certain climatological maps.
Mercator Map Projection
Map projection in which areas are shown in correct proportion at the expense of distorted shape, using a rectangular decimal grid to replace latitude and longitude. It was devised in 1973 to be a fairer representation of equatorial (i.e. mainly developing) countries, whose area is underrepresented by the usual projections such as Mercator’s.
Peters Projection
A0 map projection in which an area of the earth is projected onto a cone whose vertex is usually above one of the poles, then unrolled onto a flat surface.
Conic Projection
The Robinson projection is a map projection of a world map which shows the entire world at once. It was specifically created in an attempt to find a good compromise to the problem of readily showing the whole globe as a flat image.
Robinson Projection
United by physical, cultural, or economic traits.
Formal Regions/ Uniform Reigons/ Homogeneous Regions
Organized around a focal point and are defined by an activity that occus across the reigon.
Functional Regions/ Nodal Regions
The informal sense of place that people ascribe to them.
Perceptual Regions/ Vernacular Regions
The maps that people create in their minds based on their own experiences and knowledge.
Mental Maps
Regions divided into smaller areas.
Subregions
Data that is observed and recorded on on location, and the act of collecting it.
Fieldwork
Information that is measured and recorded using numbers.
Quantitative Data
Information that is collected through interviews, documents, and visual observations.
Qualitative Data
GIS
A geographic information system (GIS) is a system that creates, manages, analyzes, and maps all types of data. GIS connects data to a map, integrating location data (where things are) with all types of descriptive information (what things are like there). This provides a foundation for mapping and analysis that is used in science and almost every industry. GIS helps users understand patterns, relationships, and geographic context. The benefits include improved communication and efficiency as well as better management and decision making.
GPS
Global Positioning Systems
an accurate worldwide navigational and surveying facility based on the reception of signals from an array of orbiting satellites.
