Unit 1: Human Geography

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Unit 1 Human Geography

• History of Discipline
• Geography Today
• Thinking Geographically
• Applications of Geography

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Human Geography

• Study of human activities on earths surface
• Discipline began 3,000 years ago
• Looking at the earth from a spatial perspective
  means looking at how objects and processes vary
  over the earths surface
• Geographers look at how the world changes over
  space

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Eratosthenes

• Head librarian in Alexandria
• Accurate computation of earths circumference
• Based suns angle at summer solstice and
  distance between two Egyptian cities
• Coined term geography

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Ptolemy

• Published Guide to Geography
• Included rough maps of landmasses

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Western European explorers

• Bartholomeu Dias
• Christopher Columbus
• Ferdinand Magellan
• Alexander von Humboldt

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18th - 20th Century

• Period saw development of
• Anthropology
• Geology
• Ecology
• Charles Darwin - theory of evolution through
  natural selection
• Alfred Wegner - theory of continental drift

• 1864-George Perkins Marsh - Man and Nature, or
  Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
• Described impact on natural systems by humans
• Advocated conservationist approach
• Considered to be first environmentalist

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Carl Sauer

• Cultural landscapes are product of complex
  interactions between humans and their
  environments
• These should be main focus of geographic inquiry

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Sauer contd.

• Implied that most places, even natural landscapes
  (those unaltered by human activities) have been
  affected indirectly by human activities
• Created new form of human environmental relations
• Coined the phrase cultural landscape.

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Quantitative Revolution

• Stressed use of empirical measurements
• Uses hypothetical testing
• Develops mathematical models
• Uses computers to explain geographic patterns
• Led to use of GPS and GIS

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Global Positioning System

• Integrated network of satellites that orbit the
  earth broadcasting location information to
  hand-held receivers on the earths surface

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Geographic Information Systems

• Use thematic layers
• Each layer consists of a map of specific features
• May be combined into one comprehensive map
• Helps geographers understand relationships
  between themes

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Human Geography

• Combines following subfields
• Political Geography - Political Science
• Population Geography - Demography
• Urban Geography - Urban Studies, Urban Social
  Science Planning
• Social Geography - Sociology, Language, Religious
  Studies
• Economic Geography - Regional Economics,
  Economics
• Behavioral Geography - Psychology, Economics
• Cultural Geography - Anthropology, Sociology,
  History

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Other Areas of Geography

• Physical Geography
• Study spatial characteristics of earths physical
  and biological systems
• Earth System Science - new field that studies
  interaction between physical systems on a global
  scale
• Systematic Geography
• study the earths integrated systems as a whole
  instead of one phenomenon in a single space

• Environmental Geography
• Where physical and human geography meet
• Anthropogenic - human induced environmental
  change
• Sustainability - implies an approach to the
  environment that emphasizes the restraint in the
  use of natural resources

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W.D. Pattison

• 1964
• University of Chicago
• Claimed geography drew from four distinct
  traditions

• The earth science tradition
• The culture environment tradition
• The locational tradition
• Area-analysis tradition

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What does it mean to think Geographically???

• Develop a spatial perspective, an appreciation of
  scale, and ability to analyze and interpret forms
  of geographic data

• Spatial Perspective - intellectual framework that
  allows geographers to look at earth in
  relationships

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Why and How Questions

• Why Starbucks are located and successful in
  various parts of the world?

• How did Starbucks spread to those locations?

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• Geography based on premise that all places are
  different, with similarities
• All places on earth are related - some more than
  others
• Geographers look at spatial patterns and spatial
  relations

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Scale

• Map scale
• Ratio between the distance on a map and the
  actual distance on the earths surface

• Geographic scale
• Conceptual hierarchy of spaces - from large to
  small, that reflects actual levels of
  organization in the real world
• Neighborhood, urban area, metropolitan area, the
  region
• Watershed, ecosystem, landscape, and biome

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Regions

• Shared characteristics between places provide a
  means to group places together into a more
  manageable unit of study

• Area larger than a single city that contains
  unifying social or physical characteristics

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Regions (continued) . . .

• A unifying characteristic of a particular region
  may be anything that defines that place for the
  purpose of the particular question being asked
• Regions do not exist as well defined units in the
  landscape
• Conceptual constructions that geographers use for
  convenience and comparison
• Regional Geography - Pattisons area-analysis
  tradition, is the study of regions

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Types of Regions

• Functional Regions
• Special identities because of social and economic
  relationships
• Referred to as Nodal Regions - due to
  connections and interactions that occur between
  them and surrounding areas

• Formal Regions
• Specific characteristics that are uniform from
  one area to another within the region
• Specific characteristics - physical features,
  cultural properties

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Regions (continued) . . .

• Perceptual Regions
• fuzzy borders
• Involve important issues of identity
• Sense of place - give people a special
  attachment to that geographic place

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Thinking geographically

• Qualitative data - often associated with cultural
  or regional geography because they tend to be
  more unique to and descriptive of particular
  places and processes
• Quantitative data - use rigorous mathematical
  techniques and are important in economic,
  political, and population geography - where
  numerical data abounds

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Idiographic vs. Nomothetic

• Idiographic
• Refers to facts or features that are unique to a
  particular place or region
• Such as its history or ethnic composition

• Nomothetic
• Refers to concepts that are universally applicable