Unit 1: This is Geography Flashcards
What is a place?
Geography’s Basic Concepts
a specific point on Earth
What is a region?
Geography’s Basic Concepts
an area on Earth defined by one or more distinctive
characteristics
What is a scale?
Geography’s Basic Concepts
the relationship between the portion of Earth being
studied and Earth as a whole
What is space?
Geography’s Basic Concepts
the physical gap or interval between two objects
What is a connection?
Geography’s Basic Concepts
the relationships among people and objects
across the barrier of space
What region is Panama City located in?
Geography’s Basic Concepts
Panama City is apart of the world region of Latin America
What is a map?
Mapping
a two-dimensional or flat-scale model of Earth’s
surface, or a portion of it
What is cartography?
Mapping
the science of mapmaking
What are the two basic purposes of a map?
Mapping
a reference tool, a communications tool
What is the full form of GIScience?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
Geographic Information Science
What is the full form of GPS?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
Global Positioning System
What is the full form of GIS?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
Geographic Information System
What is GIScience?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
the analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite
and other electronic information technologies
What is GPS?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
a system that determines the precise position of something on Earth
What is GIS?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
captures, stores, queries, and displays geographic data
What is remote sensing?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
the acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting Earth or from other long-distance methods
What is photogrammetry?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
the science of taking measurements of Earth’s surface from photographs
What is the full form of VGI?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
Volunteered Geographic Information
What is a VGI?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
the creation and dissemination of geographic data contributed voluntarily and for free by individuals
What is geotagging?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
the identification and storage of a piece of information by its precise latitude and longitude
coordinates
What is a mashup?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
a map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service
What is the full form of PGIS?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
Participatory Geographic Information System
What is a PGIS?
Contemporary Geographic Tools
community-based mapping
What geographic tool would this be?
A drone records images of the Earth’s surface to measure later
Photogrammetry
What is map scale?
Making Maps
the relationship of a features’ size on a map to its actual size on Earth
What are the 3 ways map scale can be represented?
Making Maps
ratio, written scale, graphic scale
What is distortion?
Making Maps
the act of twisting or altering something out of its true, natural, or original state
What is projection?
Making Maps
the scientific method of transferring locations on Earth’s surface to a flat map
What are the common types of distortion?
Making Maps
shape, distance, relative size, direction
Does every point on Earth have unique coordinates?
Interpreting Maps
Yes
What is the basis for calculating time?
Interpreting Maps
longitude
What is a meridian?
Interpreting Maps
an arc connecting the North and South poles
What is longitude?
Interpreting Maps
the location of each meridian identified on Earth’s surface according to a numbering system
What is a parallel?
Interpreting Maps
a circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians
What is latitude?
Interpreting Maps
the numbering system to indicate the location of a parallel
What is an isoline map?
Interpreting Maps
a map that connects with lines all the places that have particular values
What is a dot distribution map?
Interpreting Maps
a map that depicts data as points and shows how those points are clustered together or spread out over an area
What is a choropleth map?
Interpreting Maps
a map that depicts data as points and shows how those points are clustered together or spread out over an area
What is a graduate symbol map?
Interpreting Maps
a map that displays symbols that change in size according to the value of the variable
What is a cartogram?
Interpreting Maps
a map in which the size of an area is proportional to the value of a particular variable
What is a location?
Place: A Unique Location
the position that something occupies on Earth’s surface
What is absolute location?
Place: A Unique Location
describes the position of a place in a way that never changes
What is relative location?
Place: A Unique Location
a place’s location relative to other places
Relative or Absolute Location?
Location represented with latitude and longitude
Absolute Location
Relative or Absolute location?
The house by river legacy
Relative Location
What is a toponym?
Place: A Unique Location
the name given to a place on Earth
What is a site?
Place: A Unique Location
the physical character of a place
What is situation?
(also known as relative location)
Place: A Unique Location
a place’s location relative to other places
What is a formal region?
(also known as a uniform region)
Region: A Unique Area
an area within which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics
What is a functional region?
(also known as a nodal region)
Region: A Unique Area
an area organized around a node where the characteristic diminishes in importance away from the node
What is a vernacular region?
(also known as a perceptual region)
Region: A Unique Area
an area that people believe is a part of their cultural identity
What is a cultural landscape?
Region: A Unique Area
a combination of cultural features such as language and religion, economic features such
as agriculture and industry, and physical features such as climate and vegetation
What is culture?
Regions: Geography and Culture
the body of customary beliefs, material traits, and
social forms that together constitutes the distinct tradition of a group of people
What does culture include?
Regions: Geography and Culture
what people care about, what people take care of
What is spatial association?
Regions: Geography and Culture
the degree to which the distribution of one feature is related to the distribution of another feature
What is globalization?
Scale: Global and Local
a force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope
What are the effects of globalization?
Scale: Global and Local
quicker communications with faraway places, uniform cultural preferences and homogeneous
landscapes, threats to traditional cultural practices
What is distribution?
Space: Distribution of Features
the arrangement of a feature in space
What are the 3 main properties of distribution?
Space: Distribution of Features
density, concentration, pattern
What is density?
Space: Distribution of Features
the frequency with which something occurs in space
What is concentration?
Space: Distribution of Features
the extent of a features’ spread over space
What is a pattern?
Space: Distribution of Features
the geometric arrangement of objects in space
What is humanistic geography?
Space: Inequality
geography that emphasizes the different ways that individuals form ideas about place and give those places symbolic meanings
What is behavioral geography?
Space: Inequality
geography that emphasizes the importance of understanding the psychological basis for individual human actions in space
What is sex?
Space: Gender Identity
a biological attribute
What is gender?
Space: Gender Identity
a social construct that varies from society to society and across time, and can be changed
What are the important elements of cultural identity?
Space: Cultural Identity
race, ethnicity, sex, age, class
What is race?
Space: Cultural Identity
a social construct
What is an ethnic identity?
Space: Cultural Identity
an identity tied to a particular place
What is diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
the process by which a feature spreads across space from one place to another over time
What is a hearth?
Connections: Diffusion
the place from which a feature or innovation originates
What are the two different types of diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
relocation diffusion, expansion diffusion
What is relocation diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
the spread of an idea through
physical movement of people from one place to another
What is expansion diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
the spread of a feature from one
place to another in an additive process
What are the three process of expansion diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
hierarchical diffusion, contagious diffusion, stimulus diffusion
What is hierarchical diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
the spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places
What is contagious diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
the rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population
What is stimulus diffusion?
Connections: Diffusion
the spread of an underlying principle even if the characteristic itself fails to diffuse
What is distance-decay?
Connections: Spatial Interaction
the theory that the farther away
someone is from another, the less likely the two are to interact
What is space-time compression?
Connections: Spatial Interaction
the lessening of distance-
decay in the modern world because the connection between places takes much less time
What are the results of connections between cultural groups?
Connections: Spatial Interaction
assimilation, acculturation, syncretism
What is assimilation?
Connections: Spatial Interaction
the process by which a group’s cultural features are altered to resemble those of another group
What is acculturation?
Connections: Spatial Interaction
the process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups
What is syncretism?
Connections: Spatial Interaction
the combining of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature
What is a resource?
Sustainability and Resources
a substance in the environment that is useful to people, economically and technologically
feasible to access, and socially acceptable to use
What are the two categories resources are classified as?
Sustainability and Resources
renewable, nonrenewable
What is a non-renewable resource?
Sustainability and Resources
resources are produced in nature more rapidly than they are consumed by humans
What is a non-renewable resource?
Sustainability and Resources
resources are produced slower than they are consumed by humans
What is sustainability?
Sustainability and Resources
the use of Earth’s resources in ways that ensure their availability in the future
What are the 3 pillars of sustainability?
Sustainability and Resources
environment, society, economy
What can influence Human Activity?
Sustainability and Earth Systems
Earth’s physical systems
What are the three abiotic systems?
Sustainability and Earth Systems
atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere
What is the one biotic system?
Sustainability and Earth Systems
biosphere
What is a climate?
Sustainability and Earth Systems
The long-term average weather condition at a particular location
What are the 5 main climate regions?
Sustainability and Earth Systems
tropical, dry, warm mid-latitude, cold mid latitude, polar
What is an ecosystem?
Geography and Ecology
a group of living organisms and the abiotic spheres with which they interact
What is ecology?
Geography and Ecology
the study of ecosystems
What is cultural ecology?
Geography and Ecology
the study of human-environment relationships
What are the two human-environment relationships produced from the study of cultural ecology?
Geography and Ecology
environmental determinism, possibilism
What is environmental determinism?
Geography and Ecology
the physical environment causes social development
What is possibilism?
Geography and Ecology
the environment sets some limits, but people have the ability to adjust
What are the two big contrasts in sustainability?
South Africa and the Netherlands
How has the Netherlands maintained sustainability?
Dutch modification of the environment has addressed
sustainability with the use of polders
How has South Africa not met sustainability?
South African city of Cape Town faces unsustainable demands for water
