The Five Themes of Geography

1. The Five Themes of Geography Edited by Joe Naumann, UMSL

2. What is geography?

3. Geography is the study of the earth and the ways people live and work • Comes from the Greek word geographia “description of the earth”

4. What are the 5 themes? • The five themes are what geographers examine when learning about a destination. • Location • Place • Movement • Human-Environment Interaction • Region

5. Where are we? • LOCATION answers this question in geography. • There are two types of LOCATION. • Absolute Location • Relative Location

6. Location • Absolute Location: • The exact location of a country. • This location can never move or change. • Uses latitude & longitude • Can be an address including the zip code

7. Location • Relative Location • The location of a place in relation to another geographic feature. • Where is Lake Mead in relation to Las Vegas?

8. What is it like? • PLACE is what is described by people when they return from a destination. • What do you imagine when you think of: • China • Russia • France • India

9. Place • When looking at a place we need to examine two kinds of characteristics. • Physical Characteristics • Human Characteristics

10. Place • Physical Characteristics: • Describes the land forms, vegetation, and climate of a location. • Las Vegas • Valley-land surrounded by mountains & hills. • Shrubs and cactus • Dry, hot desert • Miami, Florida • Lowlands, swamps, and beaches • Tropical flora and fauna • Humid and hot

11. Place • Human Characteristics: • Examines the humans of the area. • How many people live, work, and visit a place? • What are their languages, customs, and beliefs? • How does their economy work? • What type of government do they have & how does it work?

12. Human Characteristics of USA • Commonalities • Languages? • Religions? • Economy? • Government? • Popular Locations?

13. Human Characteristics of USA • Common languages: English & Spanish • Religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and many other religions. • Economy: Mixed market • Government: Democratic federal republic • Popular Locations: Disney World, NYC, Las Vegas, LA, and Washington, D.C.

14. Human-Environment Interaction • How do humans and the environment affect each other? • Alteration: we change the environment & sometimes Mother Nature changes it back. • Panama Canal • Levies on floodplains (Earth City) • Adaptation: when we cannot change the environment, we have to adjust to it. • Floods in Mid-west • Hurricane Andrew & Katrina • California mudslides

15. Hurricane Andrew

16. Hurricane Andrew

17. Mudslide

18. H.E.I - Continued • There are three (3) key concepts to HEI. • Humans adapt on the environment • Mississippi River for transportation & water. • Wearing clothes that are suitable for the weather. • Humans alter the environment • Heating & cooling buildings for comfort • Build pools which increase humidity levels • Humans depend on the environment • Humans use the plants and animals as food and as raw materials • Humans extract minerals from the earth’s crust to use as raw materials for making products

19. H.E.I. - Continued • Environment is not just nature, but it is also a feeling! • What is the environment of a big city with Los Angeles or New York City?

20. Movement: the transfer of material and non-material entities from one location to another. • Our world has been shaped by the movement of: • Material entities • People, resources, and Goods • Non-material entities • Mass Communication & energy • We live in a global community and economy that depends on huge amounts of movement.

21. Movement-Continued • Humans occupy places unevenly on Earth due to the environment. • We interact through Movement: travel, trade, and information.

22. Regions • Basic unit of study in geography. • Display a unity in terms of a common characteristic. • Government • Language • Landforms

23. Regions-Continued • There are three types of regions • Formal • Functional • Vernacular

24. Formal Regions • Defined by governmental or administrative boundaries. • States • Countries • Continents • Landforms • Cultures • Languages • Religions, etc.

25. The Web Airlineroutemaps.com only Powered by . Can't find the airline you're looking for?Search our database of over 1000 airline route maps Functional Regions • Defined by a function. • Airline Service Area • Newspaper Areas • If the function ceases, the region no longer exists.

26. Vernacular Regions • Loosely defined by people’s perception. • The U.S. South • The U.S. Midwest • The Middle East • The U.S. Northeast • The U.S. Bible Belt