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Unit 1 Thinking Geographically

Rubenstein, Ch. 1

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15557288Sequent occupanceThe notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape. This is an important concept in geography because it symbolizes how humans interact with their surroundings.
15557289Cultural landscapeFashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group. This is the essence of how humans interact with nature.
15557290Arithmetic densityThe total number of people divided by the total land area. This is what most people think of as density; how many people per area of land.
15557291Physiological densityThe number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture. This is important because it relates to how much land is being used by how many people.
15557292HearthThe region from which innovative ideas originate. This relates to the important concept of the spreading of ideas from one area to another (diffusion).
15557293DiffusionThe process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.
15557294Relocation diffusionThe spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another. Ex: spread of AIDS from New York, California, & Florida.
15557295Expansion diffusionThe spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process. This can happen in 3 ways:
15557296Hierarchical diffusionThe spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places (Ex: hip-hop/rap music)
15557297Contagious diffusionThe rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population. (Ex: ideas placed on the internet)
15557298Stimulus diffusionthe spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse. (Ex: PC & Apple competition, p40)
15557299Absolute distanceExact measurement of the physical space between two places.
15557300Relative distanceApproximate measurement of the physical space between two places.
15557301DistributionThe arrangement of something across Earth's surface.
15557302Environmental determinismA 19th- and early 20th-century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study o f how the physical environment caused human activities.
15557303Absolute locationPosition on Earth's surface using the coordinate system of longitude (that runs from North to South Pole) and latitude (that runs parallel to the equator).
15557304Relative locationPosition on Earth's surface relative to other features. (Ex: My house is west of 394).
15557305SiteThe physical character of place; what is found at the location and why it is significant (For more on Site & Situation, see p.16).
15557306SituationThe location of a place relative to other places. (For more on Site & Situation, see p.16).
15557307Space Time CompressionThe reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation system.
15557308Friction of Distanceis based on the notion that distance usually requires some amount of effort, money, and/or energy to overcome. Because of this "friction," spatial interactions will tend to take place more often over shorter distances; quantity of interaction will decline with distance.
15557309Distance DecayThe diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin. Typically, the farther away one group is from another, the less likely the two groups are to interact. (Electronic devices such as the internet and e-mail have aided in eliminating barriers to interaction between people who are far from each other.
15557310Networksdefined by Manuel Castells as a set of interconnected nodes without a center.
15557311ConnectivityThe relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space. Geographers are concerned with the various means by which connections occur.
15557312AccessibilityThe degree of ease with which it is possible to reach certain location from other locations. Accessibility varies from place to place and can be measured.
15557313SpaceRefers to the physical gap or interval between two objects.
15557314Spatial DistributionPhysical location of geographic phenomena across SPACE
15557315Sizethe estimation or determination of the extent of something
15557316ScaleRepresentation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance, indicated on a map as a bar graph, representative fraction, and/or verbal statement.
15557317Formal Region(uniform) or homogenous region is an area within which everyone shares in common one or mare distinctive characteristics. The shared feature could be a cultural value such as a common language, or an environmental climate.
15557318Functional Region(nodal region) Area organized around a node or focal point. The characteristic chosen to define a functional region dominates at a central focus or node and diminishes in importance outward. This region is tied to the central point by transportation or communication systems or by economic or functional associations.
15557319Vernacular Region(Perceptual Region) is a place that people believe exists as a part of their cultural identity. Such regions emerge from peoples informal sense of place rather than from scientific models developed through geographic thought. (Often identified using a mental map- which is an internal representation of a portion of Earths surface)
15557320PossibilismThe physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment.
15557321Natural Landscapethe natural environment
15557322PatternA common property of distribution, which is the geometric arrangement of objects in space. Some features are organized in a geometric pattern, whereas others are distributed irregularly. Geographers observe that many objects form a linear distribution, such as the arrangement of houses along a street or stations along a subway line.
15557323ToponymOften referred to as place name(the name given to a place on Earth).

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