Introduction to Human Geography

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Introduction to Human Geography

• Unit 1

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What is Human Geography?

• The study of how people make places, how we
  organize space and society, how we interact with
  each other in places and across space, and how we
  make sense of others and ourselves in our
  locality, region, and world.

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W. D. Pattison's Four Traditions

• An earth-science tradition
• Intellectual legacy Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
• Modern geographer Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• A man-land tradition
• Intellectual legacy Hippocratic a Greek
  Physician of 5th century B.C.
• Modern geographer(s) Alexander von Humboldt
  (1769-1859) and Carl Ritter (1779-1859) German
• A spatial tradition
• Intellectual legacy Claudius Ptolemy (A.D.
  100?-170?) a Greek
• Modern geographer Alfred Wegener climatologist
• An area-studies tradition
• Intellectual legacy Strabo (63? B.C.-A.D. 24?)
  Roman
• Modern geographer Carl Sauer (1889-1975)
  American

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Key Geographic Skills

• 1.  How to use and think about maps and spatial
  data sets.
• 2.  How to understand and interpret the
  implications of associations among phenomena in
  places.
• 3.  How to recognize and interpret at different
  scales the relationships among patterns and
  processes.
• 4.  How to define regions and evaluate the
  regionalization process
• 5.  How to characterize and analyze changing
  interconnections among places.

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Spatial distribution

• What processes create and sustain the pattern of
  a distribution?

Map of Cholera Victims in Londons Soho District
in 1854. The patterns of victims homes and
water pump locations helped uncover the source of
the disease.
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5 Themes of Geography

• Location (position on Earths surface)
• Human/Environmental Interactions (Cultural
  ecology - relations between cultures and
  environment)
• Regions (areas of unique characteristics, ways of
  organizing people geographically)
• Place (associations among phenomena in an area)
• Movement (interconnections between areas)

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Location

• Ways to indicate location (position)  
• Maps best way to show location and demonstrate
  insights gained through spatial analysis       
• Place-name a name given to a portion of the
  Earths surface (Miami)      
• Site physical characteristics of a place
  climate, water sources, topography, soil,
  vegetation, latitude, and elevation        
• Absolute location latitude and longitude
  (parallels and meridians), mathematical
  measurements mainly useful in determining exact
  distances and direction (maps)      
• Relative location location of a place relative
  to other places (situation), valuable way to
  indicate location for two reasons      a)      
  Finding an unfamiliar place - by comparing its
  location with a familiar one (Miami 35 miles
  northwest of Cincinnati)      b)      
  Centrality, understanding its importance (Chicago
  hub of sea air transportation, close to four
  other states Singapore accessible to other
  countries in Southeast Asia)       
• Distribution arrangement of something across
  Earths surface     a)       Density frequency
  with which something occurs in an area.
  Arithmetic density total number of objects
  (people) in an area. Physiologic density
  number of people per unit area of agriculturally
  productive land.    b)       Concentration
  extent of a features spread over an area.
  Clustered relatively close. Dispersed
  relatively far apart.    c)       Pattern
  geometric arrangement of objects.

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Human/Environmental Interactions

• Cultural landscape
• includes all human-induced changes that involve
  the surface and the biosphere. Carl Sauer
  the forms superimposed on the physical landscape
  by the activities of man.
• Environmental Determinism
• human behavior, individually and collectively, is
  strongly affected by, and even controlled or
  determined by the environment
• Possibilism
• the natural environment merely serves to limit
  the range of choices available to a culture
• Environmental Modification positive and
  negative environmental alterations

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Regions

• Distinctive characteristics
• area defined spatial extent
• location lie somewhere on Earths surface
• boundaries sometimes evident on the ground,
  often based on specifically chosen criteria
• other cultural (language, religion), economic
  (agriculture, industry), physical (climate,
  vegetation)
• Three types of regions
• Formal (a.k.a. uniform, homogeneous), visible
  and measurable homogeneity (link to scale and
  detail)
• Functional product of interactions, and
  movement of various kinds, usually characterized
  by a core and hinterland (e.g. a city and its
  surrounding suburbs)
• Perceptual (a.k.a. vernacular), primarily in
  the minds of people (e.g. Sunbelt)
• Regions can be seen in a hierarchy (vertical
  order, scale), (e.g. Ft. Lauderdale Broward
  County Florida Southeastern US )

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Regions

• Perceptual Region ideas in our minds, based on
  accumulated knowledge of places and regions, that
  define an area of sameness or connectedness.
• e.g. the South
• the Mid-Atlantic
• the Middle East

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Place

• Culture peoples lifestyles, values, beliefs,
  and traits
• What people care about language, religion,
  ethnicity
• What people take care of 1) daily necessities of
  survival (food, clothing, shelter) and 2) leisure
  activities (artistic expressions, recreation)
• Cultural institutions political institutions (a
  country, its laws and rights)
• Components of culture
• Culture region the area within which a
  particular culture system prevails (dress,
  building styles, farms and fields, material
  manifestations,)
• Culture trait a single attribute of culture
• Culture complex a discrete combination of
  traits
• Culture system grouping of certain complexes,
  may be based on ethnicity, language, religion,
• Culture realm an assemblage of culture (or
  geographic) regions, the most highly generalized
  regionalization of culture and geography (e.g.
  sub-Saharan Africa)
• Physical Processes environmental processes,
  which explain the distribution of human
  activities
• Climate long-term average weather condition at
  a particular location. Vladimir Koppens five
  main climate regions (expresses humans limited
  tolerance for extreme temperature and
  precipitation levels)
• Vegetation plant life.
• Soil the material that forms Earths surface,
  in the thin interface between the air and the
  rocks. Erosion and the depletion of nutrients
  are two basic problems concerning the destruction
  of the soil.
• Landforms Earths surface features
  (geomorphology), limited population near poles
  and at high altitudes

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Perception of Place
Where Pennsylvanian students prefer to live
Where Californian students prefer to live
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Movement

• Culture Hearths
• sources of civilization from which an idea,
  innovation, or ideology originates (e.g.
  Mesopotamia, Nile Valley), viewed in the context
  of time as well as space
• Cultural diffusion spread of an innovation, or
  ideology from its source area to another culture
• Expansion diffusion an innovation, or ideology
  develops in a source area and remains strong
  there while also spreading outward
• Contagious diffusion nearly all adjacent
  individuals are affected (e.g. spread of Islam,
  disease)
• Hierarchical diffusion the main channel of
  diffusion some segment of those who are
  susceptible to (or adopting) what is being
  diffused (e.g. spread of AIDS, use of fax
  machines)
• Stimulus diffusion spread of an underlying
  principle (e.g. idea of industrialization)
• Relocation diffusion spread of an innovation,
  or ideology through physical movement of
  individuals
• Migrant diffusion when an innovation originates
  somewhere and enjoys strong-but brief-adoption,
  loses strength at origin by the time it reaches
  another area (e.g. mild pandemics)
• Acculturation when a culture is substantially
  changed through interaction with another culture
• Transculturation a near equal exchange between
  culture complexes
• Forces that work against diffusion
• Time-distance decay the longer and farther it
  has to go, the less likely it will get there
• Cultural barriers prevailing attitudes or
  taboos

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Cultural Landscape

• The visible human imprint on the landscape.

Religion and cremation practices diffuse with
Hindu migrants from India to Kenya.
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Sequent Occupance

• Layers of imprints in a cultural landscape that
  reflect years of differing human activity.

Athens, Greece ancient Agora surrounded by modern
buildings
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Sequent Occupance

• Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
• African, Arab, German, British, and Indian layers
  to the city.

Apartment in Mumbai, India
Apartment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
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Two Types of Maps

• Reference Maps
• Show locations of places and geographic features
• Absolute locations
• What are reference maps used for?

• Thematic Maps
• Tell a story about the degree of an attribute,
  the pattern of its distribution, or its movement.
• Relative locations
• What are thematic maps used for?

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Reference Map
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Thematic Map
What story about median income in the Washington,
DC area is this map telling?
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• Mental Maps
• maps we carry in our minds of places we have
  been and places we have heard of.
• can see terra incognita, landmarks, paths,
• and accessibility
• Activity Spaces
• the places we travel to routinely in our rounds
  of daily activity.
• How are activity spaces and mental maps
  related?

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• Geographic
• Information
• System
• a collection of
• computer hardware
• and software that
• permits storage and
• analysis of layers of
• spatial data.

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Remote Sensing a method of collecting data by
instruments that are physically distant from the
area of study.
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Place, Space, and Scale

• Place
• place identity shaped by physical and cultural
  forces, associations among phenomena in a given
  area
• Space
• spatial relationships between people, places, and
  the environment
• Scale
• truth is scale dependent, phenomena you study at
  one scale (e.g. local) may well be influenced by
  developments at other scales (e.g. regional,
  national, or global)

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Scale

• Scale is the territorial extent of something.
• The observations we make and the context
• we see vary across scales, such as
• - local
• - regional
• - national
• - global

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Scale
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Globalization

• A set of processes that are
• increasing interactions
• deepening relationships
• heightening interdependence
• without regard to
• country borders.

• A set of outcomes that are
• unevenly distributed
• varying across scales
• differently manifested
• throughout the world.