Maps & Projections
Maps that display human-created boundaries (countries, states, counties, etc.)
What are political maps?
The physical surface of the Earth between places
What is space?
Large area with one or more unifying characteristic, function, or activity
What is a region?
Data describing the location, features, or human activities of a specific place or region
What is geographic data?
The study of how humans adapt to their environment
Cultural ecology
How a map indicates the ratio of its size to the actual size of what it represents
What is map scale?
The name given to a place
What is a toponym?
Examples include transportation networks, local TV/radio stations, and metropolitan commuter zones
What are functional regions?
Official population survey that collects demographic data (population statistics, e.g., age, sex, race, ethnicity)
What is the census?
Materials found in nature that can be used by people
What are natural resources?
Uses colors/patterns to show the location and distribution of data
What is a choropleth map?
Grouped/concentrated arrangement of phenomena in space
What is clustered distribution?
Describes the level on which data is organized on a map
What is scale of analysis?
Satellite scans of Earth’s surface that produce images
What is remote sensing?
The use of Earth’s resources in ways that ensure long term availability
What is sustainability?
Distorts the size of land masses, but preserves direction
What is the Mercator projection?
Where something exists in space, in relation to something else
What is relative location?
The contact, movement, and flow of things between locations through connections
What is spatial interaction?
Satellite systems used to determine absolute location and other geospatial data
What is Global Positioning System?
Use of natural resources to meet human needs
What is conservation?
Preserves the sizes of land masses, but distorts shapes
What is the Gall-Peters projection?
Perceived characteristics of a place based on personal experience or culture
What is sense of place?
The shrinking of relative distance between locations due to improvements in transportation and communication
What is time-space compression?
Software application for capturing, storing, and displaying geographic data
Global Information Systems (GIS)
Balance between economic/environmental outcomes
What is economic sustainability?
Preserves size and shape. Useful for mapping population distribution, but not useful for navigation.
Relationship between two or more phenomena based on matching patterns of distribution
Spatial association
The effect of distance on connections between places. States that connections weaken as distance increases.
What is friction of distance?
Admits environmental challenges, but sees humans as capable of adapting and thriving
What is possibilism?