1. Chapter 1

2. Key Issue 2 Why is Each Point on Earth Unique
Place: unique location of a feature
Regions: Areas of unique characteristics

3. Place: Unique location of a feature
What are the four ways to identify location?
Place name
Site
Situation
Mathematical location

4. Place Names Toponyms: Where does the name come from? People Religion
Landscape/Environment
Names can change
Political reasons

5. DISCUSSION
Where do names of some common places in this area come from?
Your School?
Your State?
Your country?

6. Site Physical Character of a place Climate Water sources Topography
Soil
vegetation
Latitude
elevation

7. Site Physical characteristics important for settlement Islands Rivers
Can be manipulated by man

8. Site: Lower Manhattan Island
Fig. 1-6: Site of lower Manhattan Island, New York City. There have been many changes to the area over the last 200 years.

9. DISCUSSION
Why do you think some people live in areas that are prone to natural disasters?

10. Situation Location of a place relative to other places
1) Helps us to find an unfamiliar place by comparing it to a familiar one
“Across from the fire station”
2) Helps explain importance of location
Metro-access

11. Situation: Singapore
Fig. 1-7: Singapore is situated at a key location for international trade.

12. DISCUSSION How would you describe the “situation” of your school?
Your house?
Why would you do this instead of just giving the address?

13. Mathematical Location
Precise location (longitude & latitude)
Meridian (North-South poles) measure longitude
Prime Meridian: Greenwich, England
Parallel (Equator) measure latitude
Lat Lines are the FLAT lines

14. Telling Time 24 time zones, one for each hour
Separated by 15° longitude
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
12pm in Greenwich 0°
7am in New York 75° West (-5hrs)
International Date Line, 180° longitude

15. Regions: Areas of Unique Characteristics
Cultural Landscape
Combination of cultural, economic & physical features

16. Cultural Landscape Cultural Features Economic Features
Language
religion
Economic Features
Agriculture
Industry
Physical Features
Climate
vegetation
How is the New York region different than the DC Metro region?

17. Cultural Landscape “Regional Studies Approach”
Each region has its own distinctive landscape due to combination of social relationships & physical processes
Similarities IN the region, differences OUT

18. Presidential Election 2004 Regional Differences
Fig. 1-10: Presidential election results by county & state illustrate differences in regional voting patterns.

19. Types of Regions Area larger than a point, smaller than planet
Three types
Formal
Functional
Vernacular

20. Formal Region Uniform/Homogeneous Region
Everyone shares distinctive characteristics
Examples:
Language
Climate
Political Ideology (Red Republican State)
Used to describe patterns of a region

21. Functional Region Nodal Region Organized around a focal point (node)
Reception of TV station
Distribution of Newspaper (Gazette)

22. Formal and Functional Regions
Fig. 1-11: The state of Iowa is an example of a formal region; the areas of influence of various television stations are examples of functional regions.

23. Vernacular Region
Perceptual Region
What people envision as a place

24. Vernacular Regions
Fig. 1-12: A number of features are often used to define the South as a vernacular region, each of which identifies somewhat different boundaries.

25. Spatial Association
Important to look at scale and characteristics within a region to understand factors
Cancer rates
United States: higher on East Coast
MD: higher in Baltimore and East counties
Baltimore: lower levels in Northern zip codes

26. Spatial Association at Various Scales
Fig. 1-13: Death rates from cancer in the US, Maryland, and Baltimore show different patterns that can identify associations with different factors.

27. Regional Integration of Culture
Culture: distinct tradition of group of people
To care about
Similarities in ideas, beliefs, values, customs
To care of
Production of Material Wealth
Food, clothing, shelter
How do they obtain these things?
Human Geographers research differences in culture between:
MDC: More developed country
LDC: Less developed country

28. Cultural Ecology Geographic study of Human-environment relationships
Environmental Determinism VS Possibilism
Environmental Determinism
Physical environment caused social development
Possibilism
People can adjust their environment
Video 1

29. Cultural Ecology
Human geographers study relationships between human activities and physical environment
Why do we grow grass in the yard, use water to make it grow, then cut it???
Are we going to run out of food for our growing population???
What are we doing to our environment?
What can be done?

30. Global Environment
Climate
Vegetation
Soil
Landforms

31. Climate Long-term average weather condition Koppen System Tropical Dry
Warm Mid-Lat
Cold Mid-Lat
Polar

32. World Climate Regions
Fig. 1-14: The modified Köppen system divides the world into five main climate regions.

33. Climate
Humans have limited tolerance for extreme temperature and precipitation levels
Who would want to live in these regions?
DRY or POLAR???
Climate influences production of food
Monsoons in Southern Asia
Delay can cause wide-spread famine

34. Physical Processes: Vegetation
Vegetation & soil influence types of agriculture
Four main biomes:
Forest: trees form canopy over ground
Savanna: mixture of trees & grasses
Grassland: covered by grass, lack of trees
Desert: dispersed patches of plants

35. Physical Processes: Soil
Soil contains nutrients  plants  humans
Concerns with destruction of soil
Nature & human actions
Erosion
Depletion of nutrients

36. Physical Processes: Landforms
Geomorphology: study of Earth’s landforms
Explains distribution of people & economic activities
Topographic maps: show detail of physical features, ex: elevation

37. Topographic Maps
How might you use a topographic map if you were selecting?
1. A route for a hike.
2. The best location for an airport.
3. A route for a new road

38. Environmental Modification in the Netherlands
Fig. 1-15: Polders and dikes have been used for extensive environmental modification in the Netherlands.

39. The Netherlands “God made Earth, but the Dutch made the Netherlands”
Polders: land created by draining water
Dikes: walls built to keep ocean out
Polder Dike Video

40. Florida Barrier Islands along coast Everglades
Sea walls & Jetties built to prevent them from washing away.
Erosion
Everglades
Modifications made to open up land
Led to polluted waters

41. Environmental Modification in Florida
Fig. 1-16: Straightening the Kissimmee River has had many unintended side effects.

42. C-38 Canal Florida
The canal has carried water with agricultural runoff and pollution into Lake Okeechobee