1. Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives

2. Not only do geographers pay attention to physical features like mountains and rivers, but they also look at how those features shape and are shaped by people—and the significance of their location in the past, present, and future.

3. Ancient Greeks were first geo-graphers
Hecataeus’ map
c. 500 b.c.e.

4. Key geographic skills—look at things from a spatial perspective
Absolute location
meridians and parallels
longitude and latitude
Prime Meridian and equator

5. Relative Location

6. Map projections Mercator projection
Only accurate representation is a globe because all maps have distortion.
Mercator projection

7. Robinson projection

8. Peters projection

9. Scale
Size of the unit studied (global, regional, local scale)
Map scale—the mathematical relationship between the size of an area on a map and the actual size on the surface of the earth.

10. The level of detail that a map shows depends on its scale.

11. Time zones
Solar time (before the establishment of time zones)
Greenwich Mean Time Prime Meridian
Daylight Saving Time

12. Interpretation of Places and Patterns Place Names—toponyms
history: New England
story: Yellow Knife
descriptive:
Pleasant Valley, Iowa

13. Site: the physical and human-transformed characteristic of a place
Physical characteristics: climate, topography, soil, water sources, vegetation, elevation
Situation: relative location

14. Patterns: the arrangement of objects on Earth’s surface in relation to other objects
Random
Centralized
Linear
Grid

15. Region
Formal regions or uniform regions: a region that has striking similarities in terms of one or a few physical or cultural features

16. (deBlij says that functional regions are characterized by movement.)
Functional regions or nodal regions: areas organized around cores or nodes.
(deBlij says that functional regions are characterized by movement.)

17. Perceptual or vernacular regions: places that people believe exist; they reflect feelings and images more than objective reality.