Unformatted text preview: Introduction to Cultural
Geography
Chapter 1.2 Last time we saw that….
• Geography is a 2000
year old discipline.
• Geographic study is
increasingly specialized. What interesting facts are
you discovering about the
origins of geography? Today, we’re going to ponder…
• Places •
•
•
• Relative vs. absolute location
Relative vs. absolute distance
Natural vs. cultural landscapes
“Funky Maps” Do places change
over time? • Does our human impact
change…?
• What about the slow but steady
effects of geologic time? Yes, of course. Our human impacts change. And nature takes its course.
•
•
•
• Islands evolve.
Mountains rise, or are weathered away.
Glaciers grow or retreat.
Volcanoes and earthquakes shuffle us
around. So places actually DO change. relative vs. absolute
location • “I know where Pennsylvania is! It’s right next to
New York.” --a local of Mexico City
• “Eastern Seaboard,” in “the Northeast” This is a look
at Russia,
and its
relative
location in the
Northern
Hemisphere. Absolute location uses a more
conventional system,
i.e. latitude and longitude. • NYC 40° 43’ N. 73° 58’ W.
• Philadelphia 40° 00’ N. 75° 13’ W. Site vs. Situation Site of Philadelphia, on the Delaware River. The situation of Chicago suggests the
reasons for its functional diversity. Distance • How far is it to
Boston?
• How much does it
cost to get there?
• Hint: There are 320 miles
between Philadelphia and Boston. What about cost and time?
(relative distance)
• Bus $55 8 hrs. • Rail $150 5 hrs. • Airplane $155 1 ½ hrs. Landscapes Natural landscape vs.
cultural landscape (Natural landscape) (Cultural landscape) (Village in Thailand) (Rice terrace in Bali) (Isla Margarita, Venezuela) So, a natural
landscape is
different from
a cultural
landscape,
how? What about maps? How important are maps to
geographers? Why? And now for a word on map distortion,
projections,
and other Funky Maps. Most, if not all,
maps suffer
from some distortion. Mapmakers
choose from a
variety of projections. One simple projection is the
cylindrical, or the Mercator.
cylindrical Yet, it introduces increasing distortion toward the poles. The conic projection is good
for limited areas. The Azimuthal projection retains
equal areas, for up to half a globe. Several newer projections try to minimize distortion of land areas. To do away with areal distortions, we can look
at various examples of equal-area maps… The Robinson projection… Some maps show cuts in the
oceans, minimizing land distortion. Future teachers…
Please be aware of
map distortion and try
to choose wisely, for
classroom purposes. Actually distortion can be introduced
unintentionally, as we’ve seen, or
sometimes even intentionally…. What
about
Scale? Scale is the relationship
between size of the feature
on a map, relative to the size
of that item on the surface of
the Earth. It may seem backward, but, large-scale maps show
small areas, and small-scale maps show large areas. The last style of maps that we’ll look at
is the cartogram (by far the funkiest). Cartogram of US population 2000. And this is another example,
(cartogram) of world population. Cartogram What do we call it? Next time we’ll wrap up
our introduction to cultural
geography. Also we’ll
discuss mental maps. What are mental maps? Briefly discuss career
opportunities for geographers.
(Hint: FGG Chapter 1 or Internet) ...
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- Summer '07
- Mann
- Cartography, Geography, Map projection, Cultural Landscape
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