Human Geography

1
Human Geography

• Instructor Dr. Li (pronounced as Lee)
• Spring/Fall (Summer)
• Lecture MWF 1115 1210 am (summer940-1230)
• Office Hours Call or email, if you need me.
• Office 205 Kittrell Hall (the rock building)
• Email pli_at_tntech.edu
• Phone [phone]

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Chapter One

• Introduction Some Background Basics
• The content of area has both physical and
  cultural aspects, and geography is always
  concerned with understanding both (fig 1.1)

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Evolution of the Discipline

• Geography - Spatial Science, description of the
  earth or more precisely, the study of spatial
  variation, of how and why physical and cultural
  items differ from place to place. (figure 1.1)
• Ancient Period
• Greek scientist Eratosthenes over 2200 year ago-
  geo, graphein about physical earth and
  activities of people.
• Strabo defined geography as describing the
  several parts of the inhabited world and to write
  the assessment of the countries of .
• Herodotus described Persian war using cultural
  traits such as people, lands, economies, and
  customs.
• Ptolemy - measured and devised grids (meridian
  and parallel), mapped world using 360o. Errors
  made Columbus think he reached Asia (figure 1.2)
• Non-Western Contribution
• Chinese Map of the world
• Middle Ages - Muslim geographer Idirsi, ordered
  by Roger II, to collect all known geographical
  info to show true world, with assistances from
  many scholars. It took 15 years to finish the map
  on a shiver disc (80 in diameter, 300 lbs), lost
  to looters in 1160, the map is survived by
  Rogers Book containing a world map, 71 part
  maps, and 70 sectional itinerary maps.

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Geography and Human Geography

• Human Geography and Physical Geography
• Subfields of Human Geography (figure 1.3)
• Five fundamental themes of geography
• Location, relative and absolute
• place, distinctive physical/human characteristics
  of place
• relationships, human-environ relationships within
  places
• movement, expressing patterns and change in human
  spatial interaction
• how regions form and change

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What can you do as a geographer?

• Link to the Association of American Geographers.
• Aerial Photo Interpreter
• Cartographer
• Climatologist
• GIS specialist
• Environmental Manager
• CIA/FBI
• Planner...

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Basic Geographic Concepts

• Location, Direction, and Distance
• Absolute/Relative absolute location, referred as
  mathematical location. relative location
  expresses spatial interconnection and
  interdependence. (fig 1.4, 1.5)
• Direction - absolute and relative
• Distance - absolution and relative (fig 1.8)
• Site/Situation (fig 1.6 and 1.7)
• Psychological transformation

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Basic Geographic Concepts - 2

• Size and Scale - fig 1.9
• Physical and Cultural Attributes
• climate, soil, water, terrain (Natural
  landscape). help shape how people live, but human
  modify env. (fig 1.10) Cultural landscape (fig
  1.11)
• The Changing Attributes of Place (fig 1.11 and
  1.12)
• Interrelations between Places, accessibility -
  distance isolated places, connectivity

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Basic Geographic Concepts (cont.)

• The Structured Content of Place
• Density, relatively
• Dispersion, clustered/agglomerated,
  dispersed/scattered
• Pattern (fig 1.14,1.15)
• Place Similarity and Regions
• The Characteristics of Regions-location,spatial
  extent, boundaries (fig 1.16, 1.17)
• Types of Regions- formal, functional and
  perceptual (fig 1.18, 1.19)
• Formal region uniformity in one or limited
  combination of physical or cultural features.
  E.g. county, state, country borders
• Functional (nodal) region defined by the
  interactions and connections that give it a
  dynamic, organizational basis, shown in core and
  peripheral relationship between center and
  margins
• Perceptual regions reflect feelings and images,
  such as vernacular region shows the way people
  view space, assign their loyalities and interpret
  their world. Little Itlay, Chinatown..

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Maps

• Map Scale Projection (Fig 1.20 and Appendix A)
• The Globe Grid
• How Maps Show Data, general maps/thematic maps
  (fig 1.22, 1.23)/Cartogram (1.24), intent in map
  message and biases of its author, intentionally
  false information (fig 1.25)
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Mental Maps (1.27 and 1.28)

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Systems, Maps, and Models

• Spatial System
• Model a simplified abstraction of reality,
  structured to clarify causal relationships. Maps
  are a kind of model.
• Model building is the technique social (natural)
  scientists to simplify complex situations, to
  eliminate (as does the map) unimportant details,
  and to isolate for special study and analysis the
  role of one or more interacting elements in a
  total system.