Georgia Helfter

APHUG
Period 3
08/27/2018
Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture
Chapter 1: Notes

● Human geography is the branch of geography that deals with the study of people and
their communities, cultures, economies, and interactions with the environment by
studying their relations with and across space and place. Human geography attends to
human patterns of social interaction, as well as spatial level interdependencies, and how
they influence or affect the earth's environment. As an intellectual discipline, geography
is divided into the subfields of physical geography and human geography, the latter
concentrating upon the study of human activities, by the application of qualitative and
quantitative research methods..

● Geographic inquiry involves the ability and willingness to ask and answer questions
about geospatial phenomena.

● Geographers use maps for locating people, places, and culture.

○ Ex: waging war, promoting political positions, solving medical problems, locating
shopping centers, bringing relief to refugees, and warning of natural hazards.

● The scale and connectedness is very important in geography. Explaining a geographical

pattern or process requires looking across scales. There are two different types of
scales: the first is the distance on a map compared to the distance on Earth, and the
second is the spatial extent of something. The importance comes from the fact that
phenomena found at one scale are usually influenced by what is happening at other
scales. Everything is connected, even the scales.

● Geographic concepts are ways of seeing the world spatially that are used by
geographers to help answer their questions. Geographers use these concepts to
conduct research to answer their questions. It also gives us insight to help us understand
people, place, space, location, and landscape.

The study of human geography will analyze people and places and explain how they interact
across space and time to create our world. We will be learning about where people live, the
aspects of culture, and how people have created a world in which they function economically,
politically, and socially.
Vocabulary-
Human geography: the branch of geography dealing with how human activity affects or is
influenced by the Earth's surface.

Globalization: the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international

influence or start operating on an international scale

Physical geography: the branch of geography dealing with natural features and processes

Spatial: relating to space

Spatial distribution: arrangement of a phenomenon across the Earth's surface and a graphical
display of such an arrangement is an important tool in geographical and environmental statistics

Pattern: give a regular or intelligible form to; a repeated design

Medical geography: the study of the effects of locale and climate upon health

Pandemic: (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world

Epidemic: a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time

Spatial perspective: way of identifying, explaining, and predicting the human and physical
patterns in space and the interconnectedness of various spaces

Five themes: location, place, human/environment interactions, movement, regions

Location: a particular place or position

Location theory: a theory concerned with the geographic location of economic activity

Human environment: that which is not natural and made up artificially by humans fall under such
environs

Region: an area or division, especially part of a country or the world having definable
characteristics but not always fixed boundaries

Place: a particular position or point in space

Sense of place: relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as
to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging

Perspective of place: a point of view towards a particular place

Movement: an act of changing physical location or position or of having this changed

Spatial interaction distance: a dynamic flow process from one location to another

Accessibility: the quality of being able to be reached or entered

Connectivity: the state or extent of being connected or interconnected

Landscape: all the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms
of their aesthetic appeal

Cultural landscape: a geographic area the includes cultural resources and natural resources
associated with the interactions between nature and human behavior

Sequent occupance: notion that successful societies leave their cultural imprints on a place
each contributing to the cumulative culture landscape

Cartography: the science or practice of drawing maps

Reference maps: shows the location of the geographic areas for which census data are
tabulated and disseminated

Thematic maps: shows a particular theme connected with a specific geographic area

Absolute locations: exact place on Earth; often given in terms of latitude and longitude

Global positioning system (GPS): a space-based navigation system that provides location and
time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an
unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites

Geocaching: the recreational activity of hunting for and finding a hidden object by means of
GPS coordinates posted on a website

Relative location: the position of something relative to another landmark

Mental map: a person's point-of-view perception of their area of interaction

Activity space: a measure of individual's spatial behaviour which captures individual and
environmental differences and offers an alternative approach to studying the spatial reach of
travellers

Terra incognita: unknown or unexplored territory

Generalized map: a topological model which allows one to represent and to handle subdivided
objects

Remote sensing: the scanning of the earth by satellite or high-flying aircraft in order to obtain
information about it

Geographic information systems (GIS): a system designed to capture, store, manipulate,

analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographic data

Rescale: alter the scale of (something), typically to make it smaller or simpler

Formal region: defined formally by government or other structures

Functional region: made up of a central place and surrounding areas affected by it

Perceptual region: an area defined by subjective perceptions that reflect the feelings & images
about key place characteristics

Culture: the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded
collectively

Culture trait: a characteristic of human action that's acquired by people socially and transmitted
via various modes of communication

Culture complex: a group of culture traits all interrelated and dominated by one essential trait

Cultural hearth: any place where certain related changes in land-use appeared due to human
domestication of plants and animals

Independent invention: multiple discovery, the hypothesis that most scientific discoveries and
inventions are made independently and more or less simultaneously by multiple scientists and
inventors

Diffusion: the spreading of something more widely

Time-distance decay: the effect of distance on cultural or spatial interactions; the interaction
between two locales declines as the distance between them increases

Cultural barrier: a rule or expectation in any culture that prevents or impedes someone, from
outside of that culture, from being included or participating equally

Expansion diffusion: when a trend is spread from its originating place, outward
Hierarchical diffusion: the spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority to other persons
or places

Contagious diffusion: the rapid widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the

population

Stimulus diffusion: one person receives a culture element from another but gives it a new and
unique form

Relocation diffusion: the spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place
to another

Geographic concept: allow for the exploration of relationships and connections between people
and both natural and cultural environments; provide a framework for interpretation and
representation of information about the world

Environmental determinism: the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies
and states towards particular development trajectories

Possibilism: the theory that the environment sets certain constraints or limitations, but culture is
otherwise determined by social conditions

Cultural ecology: the study of human adaptations to social and physical environments. Human
adaptation refers to both biological and cultural processes that enable a population to survive
and reproduce within a given or changing environment

Political ecology: the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors
with environmental issues and change