1. Chapter 1: Basic Concepts
The Cultural Landscape:
An Introduction to Human Geography

2. Key Issue #2
Why is each point on earth unique?

3. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Location the position that something occupies on Earth’s surface
Place names
Site
Situation
Mathematical location

4. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Location the position that something occupies on Earth’s surface
Place names (toponyms): most common way of describing a location.
Sometimes reflect the cultural history of a place.
People: Washington, Jefferson
Religion: St. Louis, St. Paul
Events: Lucky Boy Pass, Disaster Peak
A change in place name is often culturally motivated.
Cincinnati: originally named Losantiville; derived as follows: “L” for Licking River, “os” is Latin for mouth, “anti” is Latin for opposite, “ville” is Latin for town  hence, “town opposite the mouth of the Licking River.” It was changed to Cincinnati in honor of Cincinnatus, an ancient Roman general.

5. Toponyms

6. Toponyms

7. Toponyms

8. Toponyms

9. Toponyms

10. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Site: references the physical characteristics of a place.
Climate, water sources, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation
Harbor sites: the site of a natural harbor
New York City
Alexandria, Egypt
Istanbul, Turkey

11. Sites
New York City became a major city because it is located on a natural harbor.

12. Sites
Alexandria, Egypt became a major city because it is located on a natural harbor.

13. Sites
Istanbul, Turkey became a major city because it is located on a natural harbor.

14. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Island sites: the site of islands in strategic locations
Paris (originally located on an island in the Seine River)
Hong Kong
Singapore

15. Sites
Paris, France became a major city because it is located on an Island in the Seine River.

16. Sites
Hong Kong, China became a major city because it is located on an Island

17. Singapore became a major city because it is located on an Island.
Sites
Singapore became a major city because it is located on an Island.

18. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Fall line sites: sites where a river meets a waterfall
Richmond, Virginia
Confluence sites: cities located where rivers meet
Khartoum, Sudan
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Hilltop sites: cities located on hilltops
Rome, Athens, Jerusalem

19. Sites
Richmond, VA became a major city because it is located on the fall line of the James River.

20. Sites
Khartoum, Sudan became a major city because it is located at the site where three rivers converge (confluence or the White Nile and the Nile Rivers).

21. Sites
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became a major city because it is located at the site where three rivers converge (confluence or the Ohio River, the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River).

22. Sites
Rome, Italy became a major city because it is located at on a hill overlooking the city.

23. Sites
Athens, Greece became a major city because it is located at on a hill overlooking the city.

24. Sites
Jerusalem, Israel became a major city because it is located at on a hill overlooking the city.

25. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Situation: the location of a place relative to other places.
Helps us find an unfamiliar place by comparing its location with a familiar one.
Helps us understand the importance of a location.

26. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Situation: the location of a place relative to other places.
Helps us find an unfamiliar place by comparing its location with a familiar one.
Helps us understand the importance of a location.

27. Situation Command of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
Baghdad, Iraq
Command of straits and land bridge to Europe
Istanbul, Turkey
Focal point of religious pilgrimage
Mecca, Saudi Arabia;
Varanasi (Benares), India—
Cities that grew up along trade routes
Samarkand, Uzbekistan and Xi’an, China (the Silk Road)
Timbuktu, Mali (Trans-Sahara trade)
Singapore— (maritime trade)

28. Situation Supply station for ships
Capetown, South Africa
Cities that grew up along the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad
Omaha, Nebraska
Sacramento, California
Cities that grew up along the Trans-Siberian Railroad
Novosibirsk, Russia
Vladivostok, Russia

29. Situation
Baghdad, Iraq became a major city because it commands the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

30. Situation
Istanbul, Turkey commands the straits and land bridge between Asia and Europe

31. Situation City of religious pilgrimage
Muslims on a Hajj to Mecca
City of religious pilgrimage
Mecca, Saudi Arabia—Muslims-Hajj

32. Situation City of religious pilgrimage
Hindus bathing in the Ganges River
City of religious pilgrimage
Varanasi (Benares), India --Hindu

33. Situation
Samarkand, Uzbekistan and Xi’an, China developed along the Silk Road, an ancient trade route across Asia

34. Situation
Timbuktu
Timbuktu, Mali developed along the trans Sahara trade route where salt was traded for gold.

35. Situation
Singapore is the site of maritime (sea) trade because of it’s location on the tip of the Malay peninsula.

36. Situation
Capetown, South Africa grew up on the southern tip of Africa because it supplied ships when they traveled from Europe to Asia

37. Situation
Sacramento, California
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska and Sacramento, California developed on the Transcontinental railroad in the USA

38. Situation
Novosibirsk, Russia and Vladivostok, Russia grew up along the Trans-Siberian Railroad

39. Place: Mathematical Location
Location of any place can be described precisely by meridians and parallels (coordinates)
Meridians (lines of longitude)
Prime meridian
Parallels (lines of latitude)
The equator

40. Place: Mathematical Location
Telling Time From Longitude
The world is divided into 24 standard time zones, each of which represents 15 degrees of longitude.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the time near the prime meridian, or 0 degree longitude.
Pacific Time Zone, which encompasses the western part of the U.S. and Canada, is 8 hours behind GMT because it is situated near 120 degrees longitude.
International Date Line: 180 degree longitude
If you crossed the IDL heading eastward toward the U.S., you turn the clock back 24 hours.
If you were heading westward toward Asia, you turn the clock ahead 24 hours.

41. FIGURE 1-13

42. The Cultural Landscape
Regional studies approach: a unique combination of social relationships and physical processes
Each region (region: any area larger than a point and smaller than the entire planet) = a distinctive landscape
People = the most important agents of change to Earth’s surface

43. Types of Regions
Formal (uniform) regions: an area within which everyone shares in a common one or more distinctive characteristics.
Example: Montana (boundaries and government/laws)
Functional (nodal) regions: an area organized around a node/focal point.
Example: the circulation area of a newspaper
Vernacular (perceptual) regions: a place that people exists as part of a cultural identity
Example: the American South as “being Southern” as an identity

44. Types of Regions
Regional differences in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election.

45. Types of Regions
FIGURE 1-16

46. Spatial Association
A region can be constructed to encompass an area of widely varying scale, from a very small portion of Earth to a very large portion.
Different conclusions can be reached concerning a region’s characteristics depending on its scale.
For example, consider the percentage of Americans who die each year from cancer.

47. FIGURE 1-17a

48. FIGURE 1-17b

49. FIGURE 1-17c

50. Culture Helps to answer why each region on Earth is distinctive
Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to care for”
Two aspects:
What people care about
The study of beliefs, values, and customs
Language, religion, and ethnicity
What people take care of
Earning a living; obtaining food, clothing, and shelter
The study of regions that are more (or relatively) developed economically (abbreviated MDCs) and less developed or developing regions (abbreviated LDCs).
Examples of MDC regions: North America, Europe, and Japan
Manufacturing or services
Examples of LDC regions: sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.
Agriculture
Per capita income, literacy rates, televisions per capita, and hospital beds per capita

51. Cultural Ecology
The geographic study of human–environment relationships
Different cultural groups modify the natural environment in distinctive ways
Two perspectives:
Environmental determinism
19th century geographers, von Humbolt and Ritter studied how the physical environment caused social development
People are passive products of their physical surroundings

52. Environmental Determinism
Based on this theory, mountain people would be simple, backward, and conservative because they live secluded from others
Anything wrong with this theory?

53. Environmental Determinism
Tibetans?

54. Environmental Determinism
Another application, people living in tropical climates would be lazy since they didn’t need to work too hard to get food.
Anything wrong with this theory?

55. Environmental Determinism
Papau New Guinea?

56. Environmental Determinism
Part of the rationale used in colonialism; the Europeans claimed to be naturally stronger and smarter.
Any problems you see with this theory?

57. Cultural Ecology Possibilism
Modern geographers generally reject environmental determinism in favor of possibilism
The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment

58. Vegas? Then…

59. Vegas? Now…

60. Possibilism
Different cultures regard the earth as a collection of resources: substances that are useful to people, economically and technologically feasible to access, and socially acceptable to use
Some geographers say that the more wealthy or technologically advanced a society is, the more POSSIBILITIES it has to shape its environment.
Can we control the environment?

61. Possibilism

62. Possibilism

63. Physical Processes Climate Vegetation Soil Landforms
These four processes are important for understanding human activities

64. Physical Processes Climate
Long-term average weather conditions at a particular location
Frequently classified according to a system developed by Vladimir Koppen
Five main climate regions that are identified by a letter (A through E), as well as by names
A Tropical Climates
B Dry Climates
C Warm Mid-Latitude Climates
D Cold Mid-Latitude Climates
E Polar Climates

65. Physical Processes Further divided into subtypes
All but B are based off amount of precipitation

66. Physical Processes Vegetation
Earth’s land vegetation includes four major forms of plant communities, called biomes
Their location and extent are influenced by both climate and human activities (IE soil type influences the type of agriculture people practice in a particular region)
Classified into four biomes:
Forest biome: trees form a continuous canopy over the ground
Savanna biome: mixture of trees and grasses
Grassland biome: grass covers the earth, rather than trees
Desert biome: completely bereft of vegetation

67. Physical Processes Soil
Material that forms on Earth’s surface, the thin interface between the air and the rocks
U.S. Comprehensive Soil Classification System divides global soil types into ten orders, according to the characteristics of the immediate surface soil layers and the subsoil.
Orders are divided into suborders
There are more than 12,000 identified soil types in the United States
Human Geographers concerned with the destruction of the soil that results from a combination of natural processes and human actions
Destruction caused by erosion and/or depletion of nutrients

68. Physical Processes Landforms
Geomorphology (study of physical features) helps to explain the distribution of people and the choice of economic activities at different locations
Topographic maps

69. Modifying the Environment
Examples
The Florida Everglades
The Netherlands
Polders: pieces of land that is created by draining water from an area
Figure 1-21

72. Case Study: The Netherlands
Review the questions on your case study handout.
As we watch the video, answer the questions on your case study handout.