1. Welcome to Human Geography!!!
You are now a member of the most useful class you will ever take at Edison
(no, I am not kidding)

2. Geography
Population
migration
Culture- Language, Religion, Ethnicity Political Geography
Economics- Agriculture, Industrialization
Urbanism

3. No states & capitals or rivers – but…place is still important

4. CNN apparently doesn’t know geography either

5. Look for things which are right in front of you – but you have never seen them before
                                                                      

6. U.S. Population Change

7. Population Change by County

8. Contemporary Geography
Geographers ask where? and why?
Patterns are important/ or lack there of
Geographers are concerned with the tension between globalization and local diversity
A division: physical geography and human geography

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

10. Defining Geography Word coined by Eratosthenes Geo = Earth
Graphia = writing
Geography thus means “earth writing”

12. 5 major themes
Place
Region
Scale
Space
Connections

13. Maps Two purposes As reference tools As communications tools
To find locations, to find one’s way
As communications tools
To show the distribution of human and physical features

14. Maps: Scale Types of map scale Projection Ratio or fraction Written
Graphic
Projection
Distortion
Shape
Distance
Relative size
Direction

15. Three World Map Projections Mercator, Peters, and Robinson
Copyright © 1999 Peter H. Dana, Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, The Geographer's Craft Project, Department of Geography, The University of Colorado. .

16. On a Mercator projection, invented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, any straight line is a line of constant compass bearing. This enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.
Any straight line on a Mercator-projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.

17. Despite the values of the Mercator Projection, it
distorts the size and shape
of land areas.
Fact: South America is
8 times as large as
Greenland.
Fact: Africa is 14 times
as large as Greenland.
The Peters Projection is an
“equal area” map. It
represents areas accurately,
but it seriously distorts shapes.
Compare the size of Europe to Africa on the two maps.
Compare the size of the former USSR to China on the two maps.
Land area of Alaska:
615, 230 sq. miles.
Land area of Texas:
267, 277 sq. miles.
Texas is 43% of the
size of Alaska.

18. U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785 Township and range system
Township = 6 sq. miles on each side
North–south lines = principal meridians
East–west lines = base lines
Range
Sections

20. Township and Range System
Figure 1-5

21. Contemporary Tools Geographic Information Science (GIScience)
Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
Remote sensing
Geographic information systems (GIS)
Figure 1-7

22. A Mash-up
Figure 1-8

23. Place: Unique Location of a Feature
Place names
Toponym
Site
Situation
Mathematical location

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

26. The Cultural Landscape
A unique combination of social relationships and physical processes
Each region = a distinctive landscape
People = the most important agents of change to Earth’s surface

27. Types of Regions Formal (uniform) regions Functional (nodal) regions
Example: Montana
Functional (nodal) regions
Example: the circulation area of a newspaper
Vernacular (cultural) regions
Example: the American South

33. http://bcs. wiley. com/he-bcs/Books
regions of the south west

34. Culture Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to care for”
Two aspects:
What people care about
Beliefs, values, and customs
What people take care of
Earning a living; obtaining food, clothing, and shelter

35. Cultural Ecology
The geographic study of human–environment relationships
Two perspectives:
Environmental determinism
Possibilism
Modern geographers generally reject environmental determinism in favor of possibilism

37. Modifying the Environment
Examples
The Netherlands
Polders
The Florida Everglades
Figure 1-21

41. Scale Globalization Economic globalization Cultural globalization
Transnational corporations
Cultural globalization
A global culture?

42. Space: Distribution of Features
Distribution—three features
Density
Arithmetic
Physiological
Agricultural
Concentration
Pattern

44. Space–Time Compression
Figure 1-29

45. Spatial Interaction Transportation networks
Electronic communications and the “death” of geography?
Distance decay
Figure 1-30

46. Diffusion
The process by which a characteristic spreads across space and over time
Hearth = source area for innovations
Two types of diffusion
Relocation
Expansion
Three types: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus

47. The End.
Up next: Population