Human Geography: Chapter 1

Front 1

Anthropogenic

Back 1

Human-induced changes on the natural environment.

Front 2

Cartography

Back 2

Theory and practice of making visual representations of the earth's surface in the form of maps.

Front 3

Cultural ecology

Back 3

The study of the interactions between societies and the natural environments they live in.

Front 4

Cultural landscape

Back 4

The human-modified natural landscape specifically containing the imprint of a particular culture or society.

Front 5

Earth system science

Back 5

Systematic approach to physical geography that looks at the interaction between the earth's physical systems and processes on a global scale.

Front 6

Environmental geography

Back 6

The intersection between human and physical geography, which explores the spatial impacts humans have on the physical environment and vice versa.

Front 7

Eratosthesnes

Back 7

The head librarian at Alexandria during the third century B.C.; he was one of the first cartographers. Performed a remarkably accurate computation of the earth's circumference. He is also credited with coining the term "geography."

Front 8

Fertile Crescent

Back 8

Name given to crescent-shaped area of fertile land stretching from the lower Nile valley, along the east Mediterranean coast, and into Syria and present-day Iraq where agriculture and early civilization first began about 8000 B.C.

Front 9

Geographical Information Systems

Back 9

A set of computer tools used to capture, store, transform, analyze, and display geographic data.

Front 10

Global Positioning System

Back 10

A set of satellites used to help determine location anywhere on the earth's surface with a portable electronic device.

Front 11

Idiographic

Back 11

Pertaining to the unique facts or characteristics of a particular place.

Front 12

George Perkins Marsh

Back 12

Inventor, diplomat, politician, and scholar, his classic work, "Man and Nature", or "Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action", provided the first description of the extent to which natural systems had been impacted by human actions.

Front 13

Natural landscape

Back 13

The physical landscape or environment that has not been affected by human activities.

Front 14

Nomothetic

Back 14

Concepts or rules that can be applied universally.

Front 15

W.D. Pattison

Back 15

He claimed that geography drew from four distinct traditions: the earth-science tradition, the culture-environment tradition, the locational tradition, and the area-analysis tradition.

Front 16

Physical geography

Back 16

The realm of geography that studies the structures, processes, distributions, and change through time of the natural phenomena of the earth's surface.

Front 17

Ptolemy

Back 17

Roman geographer-astronomer, and author of "Guide to Geography" which included maps containing a grid system of latitude and longitude.

Front 18

Qualitative data

Back 18

Data associated with a more humanistic approach to geography, often collected through interviews, empirical observations, or the interpretation of texts, artwork, old maps, and other archives.

Front 19

Quantitative data

Back 19

Data associated with mathematical models and statistical techniques used to analyze spatial location and association.

Front 20

Region

Back 20

A territory that encompasses many places that share similar attributes (may be physical, cultural, or both) in comparison with the attributes of places elsewhere.

Front 21

Regional geography

Back 21

The study of geographic regions.

Front 22

Remote sensing

Back 22

Observation and mathematical measurement of the earth's surface using aircraft and satellites. The sensors include both photographic images, thermal images, multispectral scanners, and radar images.

Front 23

Carl Sauer

Back 23

Geographer from the University of California at Berkeley who defined the concept of cultural landscape as the fundamental unit of geographical analysis. This landscape results from the interaction between humans and the physical environment. Sauer argued that virtually no landscape has escaped alteration by human activities.

Front 24

Sense of place

Back 24

Feelings evoked by people as a result of certain experiences and memories associated with a particular place.

Front 25

Spatial perspective

Back 25

An intellectual framework that looks at the particular locations of specific phenomena, how and why that phenomena is where it is, and, finally, how it is spatially related to phenomena in other places.

Front 26

Sustainability

Back 26

The concept of using earth's resources in such a way that they provide for people's needs in the present without diminishing the earth's ability to provide for future generations.

Front 27

Systematic geography

Back 27

The study of the earth's integrated systems as a whole instead of focusing on particular phenomena in a single place.

Front 28

Thematic layers

Back 28

Individual maps of specific features that are overlaid on one another in a Geographical Information System to understand and analyze a spatial relationship.

Front 29

Vernacular regions

Back 29

perceptual regions.