Chapter 1 Thinking Geographically. Earth rise – from the Apollo 8 mission 1968.

Chapter 1

Thinking Geographically

Earth rise – from the Apollo 8 mission 1968

North America at night (assembled from several satellite images)

Geography:

• Geo/graphy = Earth/writing or Earth/description

• Study of the distribution of physical and human phenomena, their interactions and the reasons for their location.

• Where and why!

Human Geography (Geog &200) Maps as cultural constructions, geographic exploration, population and migration,

popular and folk culture, language, religion, ethnicity and race, international development, urban geography.

Five credits: social science or humanities, university aligned.

Culture

Development

Place

Sustainability

Population

Sacred landscapes Ethnicity

Our construction of regions and places

Regions based o physical and cultural featuresSource: US Dept. of Defense

Chapter 1

• What is geography• Maps, projections, topographic maps• Tools: GIS, remote sensing, GPS,

census data• Places: Site, situation, latitude and

longitude, time• Regions: Formal, Functional,

Vernacular, role of culture in regions

Chapter 1 (Cont)

• Cultural ecology: climate, vegetation, soil, landforms

• Jared Diamond: ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’• Globalization• Spatial organization of features: distribution,

density, concentration, pattern,• Connections, spread of ideas, things, people

What Is Geography?

• Two major branches:– Physical (climate, landforms, global warming, erosion etc)– Human

• Cultural (spatial arrangement of languages, settlements, religions, ethnicities)

• Economic (agriculture, manufacturing services)

• Uniting tools– Spatial approaches – concept of place and region,

connections– Cartography (carto/graphy)– Remote sensing– Geographic Information Systems (GIS)– Interactions between physical and human phenomena

Why geography?

• “The information that any citizen needs in order to make an informed decision on an important question of the day is largely geographic.”– Job location, house location, what to wear,

how to vote, what type of coffee to buy, etc

Geographers

• Association of American Geographers– www.aag.org 55 specialties– UK, Europe: more geographers– Variety of job opportunities

(http://www.colorado.edu/geography/virtdept/resources/jobs/jobs.htm)

– All involve ‘Where?’ and ‘Why there?’

MAPS: How Geographers Address Location -

• Tool for storing information

• Tool for conveying information (correct or incorrect!)

• Tool for analysis

Projections

Cylindrical distorts area

Conic distorts shape

Robinson projection as a compromise … no perfect solution

Mercator map

PTOLEMY-DERIVED MAP

Drawn in the fifteenth century, the map is based on the work of the classical Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy, who was active in 2ndC. AD. The map represents the perceived view of the world of Columbus and other Renaissance European explorers.

Maps of the Marshall Islands

Fig. 1-2: A Polynesian “stick chart” depicts patterns of waves on the sea route between two South Pacific islands. Modern maps show the locations of these Marshall Islands.

World Political Boundaries (2004)

Fig. 1-1: National political boundaries are among the most significant elements of the cultural landscape

"Maps provide powerful images. For people who want to change the way we think about the world, changing our map of the world is often a necessary first step." (Dorling/Fairbairn, Mapping p. 154)

Maps can ‘mess with your mind’

From Steve Quale’s website

(Quale specializes in hazards that he feels people should worry about)

Map showing Biological Weapons Facilities prepared by the CIA in 2002

Library of University of Texashttp://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iraq_bw_2002.jpg

Did Sarah Palin’s campaign map add to the rhetoric of disrespect and violence and influence an unbalanced man to kill?

An issue raised in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.) and 19 others including the deaths of six. 8 Jan 2011(http://www.livescience.com/culture/political-rhetoric-insanity-violence-110110.html)

How about advertising in maps?

Scale Differences: Maps of Florida

Fig. 1-3: The effects of scale in maps of Florida. (Scales from 1:10 million to 1:10,000)

RatioRepresentative fractionWritten scaleGraphic scale

Large scale vs small scale

Township and Range System in the U.S.

Fig. 1-4: Principal meridians and east-west baselines of the township system. Townships in northwest Mississippi and topographic map of the area.

Land Ordinance of 1785

Township: 6 miles x 6 miles

Section: 1 mile x 1 mile

Quarter section: 0.5 x 0.5 miles

Quarter section: 160 acres

Topographic maps

Surveyed Plat in Minnesota from 1854

(‘plats’ are established within the township and range system and show divisions of a piece of land. Plats are the prelude to towns and division of land for houses)

South Dakota, cultural imprint of the township and range system

The ultimate map: Layers of a GIS product

Fig. 1-5: A geographic information system (GIS) stores information about a location in several layers. Each layer represents a different category of information.

Types of data:• Remotely sensed data• Topographic maps• Thematic maps• On-site measurements (GPS)

Problem solving combinations:• Disaster relief• Warfare• City planning• Forest fire containment

Mental Maps• A mental map is a cartographic representation of an

individual's personal understanding of the environment(s) she/he inhabits.

• Mental maps are personal constructions and will depend not only on the physical environment but also on our daily practices, our life experiences, and our cultural values

• Use: understanding indigenous tribes landuse patterns, understanding how spaces in a city are used.

Mental maps

Scents and the Cityhttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/29/opinion/20090829-smell-map-feature.html

Why is Each Point on Earth Unique?• Unique location

– Place name (toponym)– Board of Geographic Names for Washington State.

Guess what: http://crosscut.com/2010/06/08/mossback/19875/Budget-cuts-make-Washington-only-state-without-board-to-decide-place-names/

– Site (physical characteristics)

– Situation (related to other places)

– Mathematical location (latitude, longitude)

– Sense of Place (personal & often intangible how a place ‘feels’ to you)

Place names: making names unique

• Multiple use of names– France – England - Wells by the Sea– Canada has a London

Washington names

• Bremerton: William Bremer, platted town in 1891, sold land for navy ship yard, town incorporated in 1901

• Poulsbo named by an early resident for his hometown Poulsbomoen in Norway

• Sequim derived from the Such-e-kwai-ing in the Clallam language.

Site: Physical aspects of a place

Fig. 1-6: Site of lower Manhattan Island, New York City. There have been many changes to the area over the last 200 years, ie the site of New York has changed.

Seattle

• Surface raised, tide-flats built on and extended

Regraded 1st Avenue, originally called Front Street, Seattle, 1876Courtesy MOHAI

Situation: Singapore

Fig. 1-7: Singapore is situated at a key location for international trade.

Timbuktu: situation has dramatically changed

Note: The situation of a place can change over time, resulting in its growth or shrinkage, eg Timbuktu

Mathematical location: World Geographic Grid

Fig. 1-8: The world geographic grid consists of meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude. The prime meridian (0º) passes through Greenwich, England.

Bremerton Coordinates:

Latitude 47.60° N

Longitude 122.63° W

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swKBi6hHHMA

The prime meridian

World Time Zones

Fig. 1-9: The world’s 24 standard time zones. Each time zone is approximately 15° of longitude but there are exceptions due to politics.

Sense of Place

• Sense of place: how you feel about a place based on both its physical characteristics and your experiences connected to that place

• Intangible aspects that go beyond a unique name or location

• Special places – where are these for you?

Bodie: real and imagined

‘The most important woman in the history of southern California never lived. The heroine of Helen Hunt Jackson’s popular 1884 novel Ramona, a half-Indian beauty raised on a wealthy Mexican rancho, nonetheless left an indelible imprint on southern California’s landscape. Within a year of its publication, landmarks identified with Ramona’s fictional life—her birthplace, her home, the site of her wedding, and her grave—became important, even canonical parts of a visit to southern California. One could take the Ramona freeway to town, cook like Ramona, and smell like Ramona. The novel’s romanticized version of California’s Hispanic past also inspired films, songs, musical instruments, jewelry, clothes, beer, wine, canned goods, collectibles, and a play that still draws thirty thousand people annually.‘

Places can be made

And places can be changed … eg Forks and Twilight http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26811199/

Sense of Place

Pioneer Square from an ‘enjoy Seattle’ website

After dark in Pioneer Square?

Uniqueness of Places and Regions

• Place: Unique location of a feature– Place names– Site– Situation– Mathematical location– Sense of Place Points of uniqueness … the

perception of this may vary from person to person

• Regions: Areas of unique characteristics– Cultural landscape– Types of regions– Regional integration of culture– Cultural ecology

Cultural landscape

• Regions have distinctive landscapes

• Unique combination of factors– Physical– Economic– Political– Imagined

Types of Regions• Formal regions

– Exhibit uniformity across a cultural or physical characteristic, e.g. USA, a state or Olympic peninsula (predominant/universal)

• Functional or nodal regions– Defined by interactions from a center– Impact lessens with distance (e.g. response to

disasters)

• Vernacular regions– Popular perception of a region

• Mental maps– How we see regions

Formal regions

• County• City

Formal and Functional Regions

Fig. 1-11: The state of Iowa is an example of a formal region; the areas of influence of various television stations are examples of functional regions.

In what way are we functionally part of Seattle (although we are not formally part of Seattle?)

Vernacular Regions

Fig. 1-12: A number of factors are often used to define the South as a vernacular region, each of which identifies somewhat different boundaries.

Pacific Northwest?

Regional characteristics

Regions are based on a selection of the following:

• Culture: beliefs, materials, social activities, language, religion

• Economics: uneven distribution of wealth • More Developed Countries MDCs• Less Developed Countries LDCs

• Political institutions• Imagined

Regional characteristics: Physical Environment

• Climate

• Topography

• Biomes: forest, savanna, grassland, desert

Cultural ecology: Study of relationship between humans and their environment

Regional studies: Spatial Association at Various Scales

Death rates from cancer in the U.S., Maryland, and Baltimore show different patterns and hence associations with different factors.

i.e. How regions are selected influences the results of an analysis.

Cultural Ecology

• Culture and the environment– Environmental determinism – Geographers

of the 19th century and early 20th century believed that climate influenced peoples psychologies.

– Problems?

Environmental determinism

Led to racism, imperialism, and colonialism

Cultural Ecology

– Environmental possibilism – physical environment may limit some choices

– Jared Diamond at UCLA – currently active• Guns, Germs, Steel and Collapse

Cultural Ecology

• Human impacts on the environment , ie our modification of the environment.– Some driven by need for food (physical

needs)– Some driven by cultural needs

• Lawns• Golf• Parks

Environmental Modification in the Netherlands

Fig. 1-15: Polders and dikes have been used for extensive environmental modification in the Netherlands.

Environmental Modification in Florida

Fig. 1-16: Straightening the Kissimmee River has had many unintended side effects.

More locally: Environmental modification in Nisqually delta

“Restore salt marsh and other intertidal habitat on approximately 100 acres of diked pasture in the Nisqually Delta by removing over 4,000 linear feet of dikes and fill the associated ditches to ensure undirected tidal flow to the land. Species that will benefit from restoration of the Nisqually estuary include chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout.”

Spatial thinking: Place, space and connections

Geography matters because it works to identify and explain human actions at all scales.

• Scale: From local to global

– Globalization of economy– Globalization of culture

• Space: Distribution of features– Distribution– Gender and ethnic diversity in space

• Connections between places– Spatial interaction– Diffusion

Globalization of the Economy: transnational corporations

Fig. 1-17: The Denso corporation is headquartered in Japan, but it has regional headquarters and other facilities in North America and Western Europe.

Globalization of culture, food, clothes, religion, goods such as cars

Connections: Space-Time Compression, 1492–1962

Fig. 1-20: The times required to cross the Atlantic, or orbit the Earth, illustrate how new transport technologies have ‘shrunk’ the world.

Internet?

Has this resulted in space time compression for all?

In contrast to globalism, localization: regional products/worldwide marketing

Champagne

Sequim

Space: Distribution of FeaturesTerms:• Density: e.g. some number per square mile

(arithmetic density), or number of people per unit of productive land (physiological density)

• Concentration: clustered, dispersed• Pattern: e.g. grid, linear, related to a physical featurePatterns in space depend on who you are• Gender and ethnic variations (parallel worlds)

– Eg Sunset strip– Pioneer Square?

Describing the distribution of places in space: Density, Concentration

Pattern

Fig. 1-18: The density, concentration, and pattern (of houses in this example) may each vary in an area or landscape.

Patterns in space as a function of gender and ethnicity

Patterns in space depend on who you are and on time• Gender and ethnic variations (parallel worlds)• Terms

– Gender and Sex• gender is used to refer to social or cultural categories whereas sex refers

to biological characteristics• Performing gender

– Ethnicity and Race• ethnicity as a social construct, race a convenient Census category (more

on this later)

• Parallel worlds– Daily routine within a family– More of a gender difference in some cultures , maintenance of cultural

identity?– Patterns over time

• Eg. Sunset strip, LA• Pioneer Square, Seattle?

Culture and humans• From the text Pg 35: “A pet dog doesn’t care if you are male or

female, black or white, gay or not. As long as you feed it, take care of it, and maintain close spatial interaction with it, your dog will respond with total, unquestioned devotion. Although dogs don’t care about these cultural traits, people do. They are key characteristics to which people refer in order to identify who they are. Cultural identity is a source of pride to people and an inspiration for personal values.”

• “ For geographers, concern for cultural diversity is not merely a politically correct expediency; it lies at the heart of geography’s spatial tradition. Nor for geographers is deep respect for the dignity of all cultural groups merely a politically correct “expediency; it lies at the heart of geography’s explanation of why each place on earth is unique.”

Connections between Places

• Space time compression

• Spatial interactions: exchanges of ideas or materials, or people from one place to another

Airline Route Networks – connections through spokes

Fig. 1-21: Delta Airlines, like many others, has configured its route network in a “hub and spoke” system.

Three Types of Diffusion(Diffusion is how things spread)

• Relocation diffusion (eg nomads, me, possibly you)

• Contiguous or contagious diffusion (dispersion, like oil spreading on water, ideas, diseases, building styles, some people who move incrementally)

• Hierarchical diffusion (from centers eg like the Roman Catholic Church) Also disease, airlines, commerce may follow a hierarchical pattern.

• Barriers to diffusion (hence uneven distribution)– Cultural barriers– Oceans, deserts, distance, time– Political boundaries, rules and regulations, cultural differences

• Distance decay: the further people are apart the less likely they are to interact

AIDS Diffusion in the U.S., 1981–2001

Fig. 1-22: New AIDS cases were concentrated in three nodes in 1981. They spread through the country in the 1980s, but declined in the original nodes in the late 1990s.