Geography: Its Nature and

Perspectives
Not only do geographers pay attention to
physical features like mountains and rivers,
but they also look at how those features
shape and are shaped by people—and the
significance of their location in the past,
present, and future.
Ancient Greeks were first geo-graphers

Hecataeus’ map
c. 500 b.c.e.
Key geographic skills—look at things
from a spatial perspective

Absolute location
meridians and parallels
longitude and latitude
Prime Meridian and equator
Relative Location
Map projections
Only accurate representation is a globe because all maps have distortion.

Mercator projection
Robinson projection
Peters projection
Scale
•Size of the unit studied (global, regional,
local scale)
•Map scale—the mathematical
relationship between the size of an area
on a map and the actual size on the
surface of the earth.
The level of detail that a map shows
depends on its scale.
Time zones

Solar time (before the establishment of time zones)

Greenwich Mean Time Prime Meridian
Daylight Saving Time
Interpretation of Places and Patterns
Place Names—toponyms
history: New England
story: Yellow Knife
descriptive:
Pleasant Valley, Iowa
Site: the physical and human-
transformed characteristic of a place
Physical characteristics: climate,
topography, soil, water sources,
vegetation,
elevation

Situation:
relative location
Patterns: the arrangement of objects
on Earth’s surface in relation to
other objects Random
Linear Centralized
---------
Grid
Region
Formal regions or uniform regions: a
region that has striking similarities in
terms of one or a few physical or cultural
features
Functional regions or nodal regions:
areas organized around cores or nodes.
(deBlij says that functional regions are
characterized by movement.)
Perceptual or vernacular regions:
places that people believe exist; they
reflect feelings and images more than
objective reality.