FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS IN GEOGRAPHY

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS IN GEOGRAPHY
Spring 2010 1

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS IN GEOGRAPHY
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
What is Geography?
Geo [earth] graphy [write, describe]
The study of earth as our home
A “Spatial” Science
Space the fundamental element of analysis
Human vs. Physical (and techniques)
Theoretical approaches
Systematic vs. Regional vs. Critical
UCSB Geography
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THE BASICS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Location
Distance / Direction
Magnitude
Scale
Feature distribution/interataction
1 st Law of Geography
Spatial diffusion
Regions
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Absolute location
Relative location
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LOCATION
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Site: physical (and cultural) characteristics of the
location
Situation: external relationships of a location to
other places
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DIRECTION & DISTANCE
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Direction: Absolute (cardinal) vs. relative location
Distance: Absolute vs. relative (transformed)
measures of distance
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SCALE
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Types of scales
Phenomenon: spatial and/or temporal extent at which a
phenomena occurs
Analysis: scale at which phenomena will be studied
Cartographic: relationship between the size of an object
on a map and the size of the actual feature on the earths
surface
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MAGNITUDE
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Magnitude: how much of a characteristic or
phenomena at a particular location?
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FEATURE DISTRIBUTION CONCEPTS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Clustered: close together, grouped
Dispersed: spread out
Others: systematic, random, linear
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FEATURE DISTRIBUTION CONCEPTS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Spatial Association: distribution of two or more
features and the degree of correlation
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PREVALENCE OF TYPE 2 DIABETES
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Obesity Trends* Among U.S. Adults
BRFSS, 2004
(*BMI ≥30, or ~ 30 lbs overweight for 5’ 4” person)
No Data

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FEATURE INTERACTION CONCEPTS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Accessibility: relative ease with which you can reach
a destination
Connectivity: a measure of the degree of
connections or relationships between people [and
objects] across the barrier of space
Network: the areal pattern of connections between
places
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1 ST LAW OF GEOGRAPHY
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Tobler’s Law:
"Everything is related to everything else, but near
things are more related than distant things."
Distance Decay ( y=x -2 )
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Modeling Deforestation
Risks for the Maya
Biosphere Reserve,
Guatemala (Grunberg
et. al. 2001)
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SPATIAL DIFFUSION
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
The process by which a characteristic spreads from a
center of origin to more distant places
2 processes:
Relocation diffusion: through physical movement of people,
things or ideas
Expansion diffusion: snowball spread
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DIFFUSION
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
3 types of expansion:
Contagious: rapid, widespread contact diffusion
Hierarchical: diffusion from nodes of authority
Stimulus: cultural spread of underlying principle without
characteristic
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REGIONS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
An area distinguished by a unique combination of
trends or features (internal uniformity) as compared
to surrounding areas
Location
Size
Boundaries
Variable boundary permeability
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REGIONS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Administrative:
Politically determined
Hierarchical organization
Uniform membership (everyone in that region equally a
member)
Boundaries precise (or can be made precise)
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REGIONS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Thematic (or “formal”):
1 or more variable or theme
Membership strength varies
Imprecise boundaries
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REGIONS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Functional:
Functional interconnectedness
Nodal
Vague boundaries
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REGIONS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Cognitive (or “perceptual”)
How people informally organize places in their mind
Usually shared between people (culturally shared beliefs)
Imprecise, vague, or variable boundaries
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TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES IN GEOGRAPHY
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THE GLOBE GRID
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PROJECTION
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Three classes (families) of projections:
Developable surface as a:
• Planar (Azimuthal), project the globe
onto a tangent plane.
• Conic, project the globe on to a cone
• Cylindrical, central cylindrical vs.
cylindrical equal-area
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Equivalent projections
Preserves relative areas, used for area-based
thematic maps
Ex: Sinusoidal
Conformal projections
Preserve angles, correct shape … with small shapes at
least
Graticule has right angles
Ex: Mercator
Compromise projections
Sort of preserves relative area, sort of
preserves angles…it’s “good enough”
Ex. Lots of world maps (the rounded, nice
looking ones)
* No flat map is both equivalent and conformal – only globes have this property
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WHY DOES PROJECTION MATTER?
Appropriate visualization of data
Mercator projection
Mollweide (equal-area)
What if these maps were showing population density?
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Spring 2010 Mercator projection
48

Peters projection
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WHERE DOES PROJECTION MATTER?
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WHAT ARE MAPS?
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Pictorial models of reality
An idea that changed the world! 1
1
Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World (Hanson, S. ed. 1997)
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POWER OF MAPS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Pictorial models of reality
Use of symbols to represent meaning
Facilitate perception of spatial relationships
Highlight only necessary information
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“ON THE EXACTITUDE IN SCIENCE”
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
“In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such
Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the
entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a
Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer
satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the
Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided
point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not
so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been,
saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some
Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies
of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there
are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and
Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines
of Geography.”
--Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, Translated by Andrew Hurley Copyright
Penguin 1999 .
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Choropleth map
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Dot-distribution map
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Isopleth maps
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Cartogram
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Graduated circle map
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Sketch maps
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T-in-O maps
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Peutinger map
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Network maps
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Administrative maps
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MAPS CAN DECEIVE!
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MAPS CAN DECEIVE!
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Simplification: selective presentation
Generalization: averaging over details leads to
homogenization
Graphical clarity: exaggeration of features
Projection: distortion can lead to false sense of
reality
Symbolism: can be misleading
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GIS: GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
SYSTEM
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Tool for performing spatial analysis
Data in layers
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REMOTE SENSING
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Collection of information about earth’s surface
through aerial photography or satellite imagery
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Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Spring 2010
IV - UCSB
73
April 4, 2001

Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
UCSB
Campus
Spring 2010
Nov
7414,
2000

Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
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LA Spring -2010 1928
76

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LA - 1932

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LA - 1970

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MODELS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
A simplified representation of a portion of reality,
expressed in conceptual, physical, graphical, or
computational form.
What does this mean?
• Models convey a set of interrelated theories about structures
and processes of a system of interest to the world
• Expresses the parts and their causal interactions
• Many examples in human geography
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OTHER FIELD METHODS
Geog 5
People, place
& Environment
Human geography (Primary vs. secondary data)
Physical measurement
Interviews & questionnaires
Behavioral observation
Archival studies
Physical geography
Geodetic measurements
Physical measurement of earth systems
e.g. vegetative sampling [phytosociology], soil texture
analysis, carbon dating
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