Introduction To Human Geography

1. Introduction To Human Geography

2. What Is Human Geography? • It is the study that focuses on how people make places, how we organize space and society, how we interact with other people in places and across space, and how we make sense of others and ourselves in our locality, region, and world.

3. Important Terms • Globalization- Set of processes that are increasing in interactions, deepening relationships, and heightening interdependence without regard to country borders. • Spatial Distribution- Physical location of geographic phenomena across a place. • Pattern- the design of a spatial distribution, for example, scattered or concentrated.

4. The Five Themes • 1) Location • 2) Human-Environment Interaction • 3) Region • 4) Place • 5) Movement

5. Human-Environment Interactions -Spatial Perspective: used for the study of a multitude of phenomena, such as anything from elections, folk music, and ethnic neighborhoods. • -This plays a big role in the relationship among phenomena in individual places and the relationship between humans and the physical world.

6. Location -How the geographical position of people and things on the Earth’s surface affects what happens and why. - Theory: Seeks answers such as, Why are villages, towns and cities spaced the way they are? Locations of Different Wal-Marts

7. Place -All places have unique human and physical characteristics. -Sense of place: remembering important events, or labeling a place with certain character. -Perceptions of places: never been to a place, remembering it by books, movies, etc.

8. Region -Features are usually concentrated in particular areas, because phenomena are not evenly distributed. -Fieldwork, quantitative, and qualitative methods used to develop descriptions of these different areas. Formal Region: People share cultural traits, uniform region, and same in one or more phenomena. Ex. Tibet Functional Region: people function together socially, politically, and economically. Ex. San Francisco Perceptual Region: designed to help people understand the nature of a phenomena in a person’s mind. Ex. The Southern region of the U.S.

9. Movement -The mobility of people, goods, and ideas across the surface of a planet. -Interconnectedness of places -Spatial interaction between places depends on: • Distance • Accessibility • Connectivity

10. Landscape of a Place • The material character of a place, complex of natural features, and human structures. • Cultural landscape: visible imprint of human activity on the landscape. • Sequent occupance: a society leaving their cultural imprints on a place.

11. Medical Geography • Mapping the distribution of a disease. • Pandemic: a worldwide outbreak of disease. Ex: AIDS • Epidemic: Regional outbreak of disease. Ex: Bubonic Plague • 1854, Dr. John Snow mapped cases of cholera.

12. Types of Maps -Cartography: the art and science of making maps. Reference map-location of places and geographical features.

13. More Types of Maps -Thematic map-tells a story or shows movement. -Mental map-map a person carries in their mind of a place they have been to.

14. Maps Continued • Absolute location: determined by latitude and longitude. • Relative location: describes a place in relation to other human and physical features. • Global positioning system, or GPS, is satellite based, and locates places very accurately. • Activity space: used when you have a mental map. It is the places a person travels to routinely. • Remote sensing: Method of collecting information by using instruments (satellites, aircraft) that are physically distant from the area or object of study.

15. Scale Scale has two meanings: 1) Distance on a map compared to the distance on Earth. 2) Territorial extent of something

16. Culture -Location decisions, patterns, and landscape are influenced by culture. -Music, routine habits, literature, food, and arts are all parts of a culture. Ex. Indian culture 

17. Culture Continued **Cultural Trait: a single attribute of a culture. Ex. Wearing a turban in Muslim society. **Cultural Complex: a combination of cultural traits. **Cultural Hearth: place of origin of a major culture. **Independent invention: Trait with many hearths that developed independent of each other.

18. DiffusionThe movement of people, goods, and ideas across space. • Culture diffusion- the process of the spread of an idea or innovation from its hearth to another area. -Carl Sauer wrote Agricultural Origins and Dispersals, in which he traced the diffusion of agricultural practices from hearths.

19. Expansion Diffusion- an innovation or idea develops in a hearth and diffuses outward. Ex. Spread of Islam

20. Contagious Diffusion-Expansion diffusion in which all adjacent individuals are affected. Ex. Disease, new fashion.

21. Hierarchical Diffusion-Diffusion only to those who are susceptible to, or adopting to, what is being diffused. Ex. Birkenstock Sandals.

22. Stimulus diffusion-adaption is created as a result of introduction of a cultural trait from another place. Ex. Veggie burgers in India.

23. Diffusion Continued • Relocation Diffusion- Movement of individuals who carry and new idea or innovation to a place. -Time Distance Decay- The farther a place is from a hearth, the less likely it is to adopt a new idea. -Cultural Barriers-ideas unacceptable or adoptable in a certain areas because of prevailing attitudes.

24. Determinism and Possiblism • Environmental Determinism: Human behavior is strongly affected by the physical environment. -climate is a critical factor • Possibilism: human decision making, and not the environment, is the crucial factor in cultural development.

25. Four Traditions Of Geography * Created by W.D. Pattison * • Spatial Tradition: location; what you see. • Area Studies:How an area has affect on surrounding areas. • Man-land: how man and land affect each other. • Earth Science: weather, natural disasters, dirt, water.