Chapter 1 Notes: Thinking Geographically
I. History of Geography
A. Early Geographers: Geography is extremely practical. It fills a need that people care about very much. It’s the economy stupid!
1. Greeks and Romans made maps so that they could control their empires
a. Aristotle was the first to speculate that the Earth is a sphere.
b. Eratosthenes came up with the word “geography” (write/record, the earth). He also calculated the circumference of the earth within one half of one percent.
c. Ptolemy wrote an eight volume “Guide to Geography” that included maps with grids that were not improved upon for over a thousand years.
2. European explorers (Magellan, Dias, Columbus) contributed to the knowledge of the world through recording what they learned as they traveled.
a. Information from explorers also helped create other fields such as anthropology, geology and ecology. New information led to theories such as Darwin’s theory of evolution and Wegner’s theory of continental drift.
B. Modern Geographers
1. George Marsh Perkins: wrote a classic titled “Man and Nature” (1864) which predicted that human actions would impact the earth and put a strain on its ability to sustain human life.
a. first to promote the connections between humans and the earth.
b. Many consider him to be the first modern environmentalist.
2. Quantitative Revolution: Stressed the application of science to geography. It included empirical measurements, hypothesis testing and the application of mathematical models. Alexander von Humbolt (1769-1859) and Carl Ritter (1779-1859) applied scientific inquiry to create a theory called environmental determinism. They claimed that there is a causal relationship between the environment and culture.
3. Carl Sauer (1925) argued that cultural landscapes should be the primary focus of geographic inquiry. Sauer’s work paved the way for the formal study of geography in this class. It is typically called environmental geography or cultural ecology.
4. W.D. Pattison (1964) help expand the study of geography by claiming that the study of geography drew from four distinct traditions: earth science (physical geography), culture-environment (environmental geography), locational (cartography) and the area-analysis tradition (regional geography).
5. Technological Revolution: GPS, GIS and remote sensing allows us to understand a huge number of phenomena as they occur across the earth’s surface.
6. Qualitative Studies: Uses subjective information such as interviews, oral history and observation to create a perspective of an event, group or place.
II. Goals of Human Geography
1. Test students ability to understand the interpret the implications of associations among phenomena in places. This involves inquiry; the process of investigating the “why of where,” or why does a certain thing take place in certain places.
2. Another goal is to learn to recognize and interpret relationships among patterns and processes as different scales of organization. This requires spatial thinking. Spatial thinking is a skill used within inquiry when data is plotted on a map to reveal patterns geographers use the skill of spatial thinking. It involves looking at how densely a phenomena is concentrated and where it is concentrated. We also want to know how it diffused (or spread) to its current distribution. In essence where historians focus on time, geographers focus on space.
3. A third goal is learn to use and think about maps and spatial data.
III. Modern Geographic Tools
A. Computer Technology and GIS- GIS is a powerful software that allows professionals to capture, record and analyze data and demonstrate it in spatial terms.
1. Thematic Layer Maps- allows maps to be stacked on top of each other to see many different factors in a given area. (roads, water, elevation contours etc.)
2. Location Charts convey a large amount of information by associating charts with mapped locations.
3. Dot maps: use points (dots) to show the precise locations of occurrences (crimes, accidents or birth’s)
4. Choropleth Maps: use colors or shading to represent categories of data from a geographical area.
5. Cartogram: Land size is adjusted (bigger or smaller) in relation to some phenomena (population, income, education level etc.)
6. Visualizations: software that creates dynamic (3D or interactive) maps.
7. Cognitive Maps (Mental Maps) creates a mental image of a person or groups perception of space. (can be closely related to relative location)
B. Remote Sensing: the use of both airplanes (including drones) and satellites to capture images of the earth’s surface. Images are sent to sensors which can be sent back to satellites (triangulation) and used by GPS or GIS.
C. Map Features
1. Mathematical Location
- Latitude-imaginary lines run E/W & measure N/S. Lines are parallel but are not the same length. Climates change as latitude increases.
- Longitude-(aka meridians) imaginary lines that run N/S but measure location E/W. Meridians are not parallel but they are the same length. The Prime Meridian (0 degrees) runs through Greenwich, England where as the International Date Line (180 degrees) is on the exact opposite side of the globe. Meridians are used to measure time. Every 15 degrees of longitude equal one hour time difference.
2. Relative Location (situation) is the location of a place in relation to other places.
3. Projection-The scientific method of transferring information on earth’s surface to a flat map. Every type of projection produces some type of distortion. Distortion occurs in the following four ways. type of distortion type of map
- Shape- Conformal (or orthomorphic)
- Distance- Equidistant projection
- Size- Equal Area projection
d. Direction- Azimuthal projection (used in
aviation to depict great circle routes)
If a map is produced to produce greater accuracy in one area, the other areas become more distorted.
Most common map names
Robinson Projection: This type of map distorts all four areas slightly so as to keep from having too much distortion in any one area. It is helpful in displaying information across oceans
Mercator Projection: Rectangular projection that accurately shows shapes of continents and landforms, it drastically distorts the size(area) of the continents especially near the poles.
Peter Projection: Cylindrical projection that shows the relative size (equal area) of the earth’s continents but distorts the shapes of the continents
Fuller Projection: Maintains accurate size and shape but completely rearranges direction.
4. Scale:
- Map Scale: deals with the size (or scope) of an object on paper in relationship to its actual size.
- Map scale can be shown in three ways
Written- one inch equals ten miles
Fraction- 1/ 10miles
Ratio- 1:10 miles
Graphic bar scale- a line that equals a certain distance on earth’s surface
Thinking about scale can be counter-intuitive.
Large map scale = large area=less detail=global scale
Small map scale= small area= more detail=local scale
We will also speak of scale when talking about ideas and their prominence as they spread. Idiographic refers to facts of features that are unique to a place or region whereas nomothetic refers to concepts that can be applied universally. For example, popular culture is culture on a larger (global) scale. While it does have some distinct characteristics, popular culture only allows for the spread of certain cultural traits at the expense of those with out access or appeal to large numbers of people. Therefore, local culture possesses distinct characteristics (wearing kilts, eating Haggis and speaking Gaelic). The characteristics are unique to Scotland but the ways that cultural traits spread to other places are universal (nomothetic). Once a trait spreads to other places they adapt and change to fit the populations in those places on a larger scale.
5. Resolution
Refers to a map’s smallest discernable unit (the smallest thing you see on a map).
a. If the smallest thing you can see is 100 meters, then
that map’s resolution is 100 meters.
b.The resolution of a small world map may not have
enough resolution to show even major landforms like Long Island in New York harbor or Cape Cod in Massachusetts.