1. Introduction to Human Geography
Unit 1

2. 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.

3. W. D. Pattison's Four Traditions
An earth-science tradition
Intellectual legacy: Aristotle ( B.C.)
Modern geographer: Immanuel Kant ( )
A man-land tradition
Intellectual legacy: Hippocratic; a Greek Physician of 5th century B.C.
Modern geographer(s): Alexander von Humboldt ( ) and Carl Ritter ( ); 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 ( ); American

4. 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.

5. in London’s Soho District
Spatial distribution
What processes create and sustain the pattern of a distribution?
Map of Cholera Victims
in London’s Soho District
in 1854.
The patterns of victim’s homes and water pump locations helped uncover the source of the disease.

6. 5 Themes of Geography Location (position on Earth’s 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)

7. 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 Earth’s 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 Earth’s 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 feature’s spread over an area. Clustered – relatively close. Dispersed – relatively far apart.     c)       Pattern – geometric arrangement of objects.

11. 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

12. Regions Distinctive characteristics: Three types of regions:
area: defined spatial extent
location: lie somewhere on Earth’s 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 …)

14. 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

16. Place Culture – people’s 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 Koppen’s five main climate regions (expresses humans’ limited tolerance for extreme temperature and precipitation levels)
Vegetation – plant life.
Soil – the material that forms Earth’s 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 – Earth’s surface features (geomorphology), limited population near poles and at high altitudes

17. Perception of Place Where Pennsylvanian students prefer to live
Where Californian students prefer to live

18. 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

20. The visible human imprint on the landscape.
Cultural Landscape
The visible human imprint on the landscape.
Religion and cremation practices diffuse with Hindu migrants from India to Kenya.

21. Sequent Occupance
Layers of imprints in a cultural landscape that reflect years of differing human activity.
Athens, Greece
ancient Agora surrounded by modern buildings

22. 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

23. 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?

24. Reference Map

25. Thematic
Map
What story about median income in the Washington, DC area is this map telling?

26. the places we travel to routinely in our rounds of daily activity.
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?

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

28. Remote Sensing: a method of collecting data by instruments that are physically distant from the area of study.

30. Place, Space, and Scale Place: Space: Scale:
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)

31. 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

32. Scale

33. 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.