1. Chapter 1: Thinking Geographically
Vijay Joshi, Stephen Hester, Grant Cameron, Shawn Habibi

2. What is Cartography?
-Cartography is the theory and study of making visual representations of the earths surface in the form of maps
-Cartography is the central study of geography. Most people associate maps with geography, when they really should associate maps with cartography, and cartography with geography.

3. What are the most considerations of cartographers?
-Scale and projection
-Scale is the ratio between distance on the map and actual distance on the earths surface
-Projection is the type of map used. As it is impossible to represent a 3d object on a 2d surface without distorting the object, each projection has its flaws, for example, he Mercator the projection, which is the type of map teachers have in there classrooms, as you go towards the pole of the earth, the land masses become more distorted

4. What are GPS, GIS, and remote sensing?
-GPS is a network of satellites that orbit the earth, broadcasting info to handheld receivers such as phones. With a receiver, a person can recive highly accurate location information in terms of latitude and longitude
-GIS stands for Geographic Information System. GIS is a family of software programs that allow geographers to map, analyze, and model spatial data. GIS uses thematic regions that consist of an individual map with specific features. When you layer these, they can show you a comprehensive map of a specific region.
-Remote sensing is the technique of using satellites orbiting above the earth to sense and map features of the landscape.

5. What is a toponym? •The name given to a portion of Earth’s Surface
•Includes the names of cities, counties, countries, continents, bodies of water, landforms, and other regions.
•Ex: The toponym given to a large country in North America is the United States.

6. What is a global grid?
•An imaginary grid created by lines of latitude and longitude called meridians and parallels on Earth’s surface.
•Parallels run East to West and meridians run North to South. Used to determine the mathematical location of a place through coordinates.
•Ex: Denver is located at 39ºN 104ºW

7. What is the relationship between time and longitude?
•Every fifteenth line of longitude represents a new time zone.
•There are 24 time zones because there are 24 hours in a day. The Prime Meridian runs though Greenwich so this system is called Greenwich Mean Time. Each time zone is an hour ahead of the previous zone.
•Ex: When it is noon in Denver, it is Midnight in Central Russia.

8. What is the relationship between climate and latitude?
-As you increase or decrease latitude from 0 degrees, or the equator, the climate become colder. Also the climate at 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south will be the same, because they are the same distance from the equator.

9. What are the types of regions?
•A region is an area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.
•There are 3 different types of regions: formal, functional, and vernacular.
–Formal: An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics.
–Functional: An area organized around a node or focal point.
–Vernacular: An area that people believe to exist as part of their cultural identity.

10. What are the types of regions (cont.)
•Ex:
–Formal: An area where people vote Democratic
–Functional: The reception area of a television station
–Vernacular: Southern U.S. referred to as a place with environmental, cultural, and economic features distinct from the rest of the U.S.

11. How do people sort themselves across space?
People sort themselves out into places that are familiar and have easy access to necessities such as food, water, and fertile soil.
People tend to live in spaces closer to people with similar backgrounds. Cultural identity plays an important role to the way people sort themselves out.
Cities in Egypt are close to the Nile River because it is a source of water and had fertile soil around it.

12. What is site and situation?
Site is the actual location of something on Earth, and shows the physical characteristics of a specific area.
Situation is the location of something on Earth relative to other places.
For example people use situation to give loose directions to somewhere. “The Starbucks is next to McDonalds”

13. What is spatial distribution?
The 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.
The data can include how dense or spaced out something is, or how many units of something per area.
An example could be the arrangement of bus stops on a transit map. The stops are arranged in lines that form patterns that correspond to the various routes of each bus.

14. What is possibilism and environmental determinism?
Possibilism-The theory that the physical environment may
set limits on human actions but that people have the ability to
adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.
Environmental determinism- A nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century approach to the study of geography that
argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could
be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the
study of how the physical environment caused human activities.
An example of possibilism would be humans inventing the A/C for hot areas, and heater for cold. Example of Environ. Deter. could be how people who lived in plains with fertile soil, were farmers.

15. What are density, frequency, and concentration?
-Density: The amount of times something occurs within a given area or space. (Ex. population density)
-Frequency: The amount of times something occurs over a given time period.
-Concentration: The spread of something over a given area. Can be classified as clustered or dispersed.