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Human Geography

Human Geography. Instructor: Dr. Li (pronounced as Lee) Spring/Fall (Summer): Lecture: MWF 11:15 – 12:10 am (summer:9:40-12:30) Office Hours: Call or email, if you need me. Office: 205 Kittrell Hall (the rock building) Email: pli@tntech.edu Phone: 372-3752. Chapter One.

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Human Geography

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  1. Human Geography Instructor: Dr. Li (pronounced as Lee) Spring/Fall (Summer): Lecture: MWF 11:15 – 12:10 am (summer:9:40-12:30) Office Hours: Call or email, if you need me. Office: 205 Kittrell Hall (the rock building) Email: pli@tntech.edu Phone: 372-3752

  2. Chapter One Introduction: Some Background Basics The content of area has both physical and cultural aspects, and geography is always concerned with understanding both (fig 1.1)

  3. Evolution of the Discipline Geography - Spatial Science, description of the earth or more precisely, the study of spatial variation, of how and why physical and cultural items differ from place to place. (figure 1.1) • Ancient Period: • Greek scientist Eratosthenes over 2200 year ago- “geo”, “graphein” about physical earth and activities of people. • Strabo defined geography as describing the several parts of the inhabited world and to write the assessment of the countries of …. • Herodotus – described Persian war using cultural traits such as people, lands, economies, and customs. • Ptolemy - measured and devised grids (meridian and parallel), mapped world using 360o. Errors made Columbus think he reached Asia (figure 1.2) • Non-Western Contribution • Chinese Map of the world • Middle Ages - Muslim geographer Idirsi, ordered by Roger II, to collect all known geographical info to show true world, with assistances from many scholars. It took 15 years to finish the map on a shiver disc (80 in diameter, 300 lbs), lost to looters in 1160, the map is survived by ‘Roger’s Book’ – containing a world map, 71 part maps, and 70 sectional itinerary maps.

  4. Geography and Human Geography • Human Geography and Physical Geography • Subfields of Human Geography (figure 1.3) • Five fundamental themes of geography • Location, relative and absolute • place, distinctive physical/human characteristics of place • relationships, human-environ relationships within places • movement, expressing patterns and change in human spatial interaction • how regions form and change

  5. What can you do as a geographer? • Link to the Association of American Geographers. • Aerial Photo Interpreter • Cartographer • Climatologist • GIS specialist • Environmental Manager • CIA/FBI • Planner...

  6. Basic Geographic Concepts • Location, Direction, and Distance • Absolute/Relative: absolute location, referred as “mathematical location”. relative location expresses spatial interconnection and interdependence. (fig 1.4, 1.5) • Direction - absolute and relative • Distance - absolution and relative (fig 1.8) • Site/Situation (fig 1.6 and 1.7) • Psychological transformation

  7. Basic Geographic Concepts - 2 • Size and Scale - fig 1.9 • Physical and Cultural Attributes • climate, soil, water, terrain (Natural landscape). help shape how people live, but human modify env. (fig 1.10) Cultural landscape (fig 1.11) • The Changing Attributes of Place (fig 1.11 and 1.12) • Interrelations between Places, accessibility - distance isolated places, connectivity

  8. Basic Geographic Concepts (cont.) • The Structured Content of Place • Density, relatively • Dispersion, clustered/agglomerated, dispersed/scattered • Pattern (fig 1.14,1.15) • Place Similarity and Regions • The Characteristics of Regions-location,spatial extent, boundaries (fig 1.16, 1.17) • Types of Regions- formal, functional and perceptual (fig 1.18, 1.19) • Formal region: uniformity in one or limited combination of physical or cultural features. E.g. county, state, country borders • Functional (nodal) region: defined by the interactions and connections that give it a dynamic, organizational basis, shown in core and peripheral relationship between center and margins • Perceptual regions: reflect feelings and images, such as “vernacular region” shows the way people view space, assign their loyalities and interpret their world. “Little Itlay”, “Chinatown”..

  9. Maps • Map Scale Projection (Fig 1.20 and Appendix A) • The Globe Grid • How Maps Show Data, general maps/thematic maps (fig 1.22, 1.23)/Cartogram (1.24), intent in map message and biases of its author, intentionally false information (fig 1.25) • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) • Mental Maps (1.27 and 1.28)

  10. Systems, Maps, and Models • Spatial System • Model – a simplified abstraction of reality, structured to clarify causal relationships. Maps are a kind of model. • Model building is the technique social (natural) scientists to simplify complex situations, to eliminate (as does the map) unimportant details, and to isolate for special study and analysis the role of one or more interacting elements in a total system.

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