Geography…Its Nature & Perspectives

Where does Geography come from? First named by Greek scholar Eratosthenes Geo= “Earth” Graphy= “to write”

Thinking Geographically Geography is the study of the location of people and activities across Earth- and the reasons for their distribution Geographers ask why & where

Early Geographers Eratosthenes (100 BC) Coined to term First to measure the earth Ptolemy (2 nd century) Created one of the first maps Zheng He (mid 1400s) Famous Chinese explorer Gerardus Mercator ( ) First to produce world map, with relative accuracy and the general outline of the continents

Two Types of Geography Human Geography Where & why human activities are located where they are Ex. Religions, cities, businesses Focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction Populations Economic activities Migration Political systems Physical Geography Where & why natural forces occur as they do landforms Plants Animals Climate Weather Bodies of Water Atmosphere Environment Rocks & minerals

Where & Why Space- patterns and regularities across Earth (depicted on maps) Place- unique location of everything on Earth Region- areas formed by distinctive combinations of features Scale- the relationship between the size of an object or distance between objects on a map and the size of the actual object of distance on earth’s surface. Connections- relationships of places and regions

5 Themes of Geography

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Place Site- the internal physical attributes of a place Situation- the external attributes of a place

Spatial Pertaining to the space on the earth’s surface All geographers are interested in the spatial arrangement of places and phenomenon, how they are laid out, organized and arranged on the Earth and how they appear on the landscape Mapping the spatial distribution is often the first step to understanding it

Pattern By looking at a map of how something is distributed across space, a geographer can raise questions about, what processes create and sustain the particular pattern of distribution and what relationship exists between different things and places Pattern- the design of spatial distribution It will be scattered or concentrated

Cholera Pandemic In 1854, Dr. John Snow mapped cases of cholera in London’s Soho district Cholera was one of the world’s 1 st pandemics (worldwide outbreak of disease) No one knew what caused the disease or how to avoid it When it reached London in the 1850’s Dr. Snow mapped the Soho district, marking all the areas water pumps and the residences where each person who died lived

500 deaths occurred in Soho As he created the map, Snow noticed especially large numbers of deaths clustered around the water pump on Broad street At the Dr’s request, city authorities removed the handle from the pump making it impossible to get water from it The results were drastic, almost immediately the number of reported cases fell to zero

Cultural Landscape Landscape refers to the material character of a place, the complex of natural and human structures Cultural landscape- visible imprint of human activity on the landscape Term was coined by Carl Sauer, a professor at the University of California at Berkley We can see the cultural landscape in the layers of buildings, roads, memorials, churches and homes that human activities overtime have imprinted on the landscape

Cultural landscapes have layers of imprints from years of human activity Sequent occupance- the sequential imprints of occupants, whose impacts are layered one on top of the other