Chapter 1

Question 1

What is cartography?

Answer 1

the art and study of making maps

Question 2

What is contagious diffusion?

Answer 2

the rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population

Question 3

What is concentration?

Answer 3

a property of distribution–used to describe changes in distribution; the extent of a feature’s spread over space (clustered v. dispersed)

Question 4

Conic Projection

Answer 4

cone; a class of map projections: the projection surface (the paper of the map) is in a cone shape around a globe

Question 5

Density

Answer 5

a property of distribution; the frequency with which something occurs in space

Question 6

Diffusion

Answer 6

the process by which a characteristic spreads across space from one place to another

Question 7

Distance-decay

Answer 7

contact diminishes with increasing distance

Question 8

Distribution

Answer 8

the arrangement of a feature in space

Question 9

Environmental Determinism

Answer 9

the idea that the physical environment causes social development; the environment determines what human can and cannot do–it limits our abilities

Question 10

Cultural Ecology

Answer 10

the geographic study of human-environment relationships; the cultural features/activities of humans and how they interact with the environment

Question 11

Expansion Diffusion

Answer 11

the spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process

Question 12

Formal Region

Answer 12

an area within which everyone shares at least one common distinctive characteristic–formal boundaries

Question 13

Functional Region

Answer 13

(a nodal region) an area organized around a node or focal point

Question 14

GIS

Answer 14

Geographical Information System; allows projections to provide the mechanism for linking data from multiple sources onto a single map

Question 15

GPS

Answer 15

Global Positioning Satellite–takes pictures

Question 16

Hierarchical Diffusion

Answer 16

the spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority and/or power to other persons and places

Question 17

Hearth

Answer 17

the node or location from which an innovation/idea originates

Question 18

Mercator Projection

Answer 18

1500s shape (NOT AREA) preserving cylindrical map projection. Navigation–any two points on the earth would plot as a straight line on the map; very precise lat/long

Question 19

Possibilism

Answer 19

the opposite of environmental determinism; it’s the idea that the physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment

Question 20

Projection

Answer 20

the spherical surface of the earth is shown on flat maps by the means of map projections

Question 21

Relocation Diffusion

Answer 21

the spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another

Question 22

Remote Sensing

Answer 22

the acquisition of data about the Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting Earth or from other long-distance methods

Question 23

Robinson Projection

Answer 23

COMPROMISE; oval; no special property is achieved at the expense of others–distortion is rather evenly distributed (areas look larger in high latitudes and smaller in low latitudes & not all lat/long lines are perpendicular)

Question 24

Scale

Answer 24

the ratio of the distance on the map to the distance on the earth

Question 25

Site

Answer 25

a way geographers use to describe the location of a place; it’s the physical character of a place

Question 26

Situation

Answer 26

the location of a place relative to other places

Question 27

Space-Time Compression

Answer 27

a term geographers use to describe the reduction in time it takes for something to reach another place

Question 28

Stimulus Diffusion

Answer 28

the spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself fails to diffuse

Question 29

Toponym

Answer 29

the name given to a portion of Earth’s surface

Question 30

Tobler’s first law of Geography: Friction of Distance

Answer 30

everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things

Question 31

Uneven Development

Answer 31

the increasing gap in economic conditions between regions in the core and periphery that results from the globalization of the economy

Question 32

Vernacular/Perceptional Region

Answer 32

an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity; a mental map. ex. “Down South”

Question 33

Isoline

Answer 33

a map that uses contour lines to show/convey something (information). ex. elevation (topographic map)

Question 34

Aristotle

Answer 34

Was the first to demonstrate that Earth was spherical

Question 35

Ptolemy

Answer 35

wrote “Guide to Geography”

Question 36

Carl Sauer

Answer 36

wrote the article “Recent Developments in Cultural Geography,” which considered how cultural landscapes are made up of “the forms superimposed on the physical landscape”