Five Themes of Geography
This theme answers the question, "Where is it?" using coordinates like latitude and longitude, or by describing its position relative to other things.
What is Location?
A round model of the Earth that is shaped like a sphere.
What is a globe?
These horizontal imaginary lines run from East to West.
What is latitude?
This part of the map is a small picture or symbol that helps you understand what different things on the map, like roads or rivers, represent.
What is the map key (or map legend)?
This is a firsthand account of an event, created by someone who was there, like a letter or a diary.
What is a primary source?
This theme explores the travel of people, goods, and ideas across the Earth.
What is movement?
Seven large pieces of land that cover part of the Earth.
What are the continents?
These imaginary lines run from north to south and are parallel to each other.
What are lines of longitude?
The big, star-like symbol on a map that shows you north, south, east, and west.
What is the compass rose?
A speech given by a president.
What is a primary source?
This theme explains how people adapt to, depend on, and modify their environment.
A large body of saltwater that covers part of the Earth.
What are oceans?
These are the imaginary lines that divide the world into half.
What are lines of latitude and longitude?
The name given to the part of a map that tells you the location or feature the map is showing.
What is the title?
If you found an old photograph of your great-grandparents, what kind of source would it be?
What is a primary source?
This theme describes the unique physical and human characteristics of a place, like its climate, landforms, culture, and history.
What is Place?
A person who creates maps.
What is a cartographer?
This imaginary line divides the Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
What is the Prime Meridian?
A small drawing of something real.
What is a symbol?
This is a secondhand account of an event, created by someone who didn't experience it firsthand, such as an encyclopedia or a textbook.
What is a secondary source?
This theme groups areas together based on shared characteristics, like a city's neighborhoods.
What is region?
The directions on a compass rose.
What is north, south, west, east?
This imaginary line, the 0-degree longitude line, divides Earth into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
What is the Equator?
This helps you figure out how far apart places are on the map by showing the relationship between the distance on the map and the actual distance in the real world.
What is the map scale?
A biography that tells the story of Abraham Lincoln.
What is a secondary source?