5 Themes of Geography
"The Grand Canyon has steep rock walls that were carved over centuries by the Colorado River."
Which theme does this illustrate?
place
This explains what the symbols on a map mean.
Legend/key
A mapmaker is called a ______.
Cartographer
Name the three types of thematic maps we discussed in class.
proportional symbol, dot density, point symbol
A group of places with common traits is a called a _______.
region
People building dams to change the flow of rivers is an example of which theme?
Human-Environment Interaction
Shows the directions N, S, E and W and the direction they point on the map.
Compass rose
True or false? If the statement is false, replace the underlined word to make the statement true or correct. A hemisphere is one-fourth of Earth.
False; a hemisphere is a HALF of Earth.
Which type of thematic map would be useful for showing the size of an event such as how many gold medals each country won during the Olympics?
proportional symbol map
What was the name of the Chinese explorer and admiral who sailed to Arabia?
Zheng He
This theme of geography could be represented by coordinates such as 115°N, 35°W.
Absolute location
This shows how much distance on Earth is represented on the map.
Map scale
Similarities among places are also know as ________.
Geographic patterns
Which features can be found on a political map? Which features can be found on a physical map? Which type of person might be interested in using each type of map?
Political maps feature boundaries (or borders), lines drawn in, names of places, and are man-made.
Physical maps include natural features like mountain ranges, plateaus, elevation, lakes, rivers, oceans, and other bodies of water, etc.
A president or leader of a country might be interested in a political map so they can see different boundaries, while a hiker might be interested in a physical map so they can see different elevations and other landforms that are near their trail.
The center line of longitude?
Prime Meridian
"Many people practice Buddhism in Southeast Asian nations, including Thailand, Myanmar, and many others."
This is an example of which theme of geography?
Region
Use these lines to help you locate a place based on distance north or south of the equator.
Lines of Latitude
Describe what the term "thinking spatially" means. Why do you think geographers tend to think spatially?
Geographers ask questions like, “Where is a place located? Why is this location significant, or important?” This helps geographers determine geographic patterns, or what things in common, certain places have with one another.
What is a large-scale map? A small-scale map? When would we use each of these?
Which is the proper way to write the absolute location of Shanghai?
A)121.4° E, 31.2° N
B) 31.2° N, 121.4° E
B) 31.2° N, 121.4° E
Latitude first (degrees north or south of the Equator), followed by longitude (degrees east or west of the Prime Meridian)
"At least 10 million bats arrive in Kasanka National Park from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo every October."
This is an example of which theme of geography?
Movement (animal migration)
Shows the specific area of the world that is shown on the map.
Locator globe
Explain what elevation is and what it usually looks like on a map.
*Bonus 100 points: would elevation be found on a political map or on a physical map?
Elevation is how high, or elevated, a place on Earth is compared to sea level. For example, Tibet is at a very high elevation while Shanghai is just above sea level and at a lower elevation. Elevation is usually in red or appears to be bumpy. You can find specific elevations on physical maps.
Explain how a dot density map is used and provide an example.
On a dot density map, each dot represents a certain amount of things. If we want to visualize and see population density (how many people live in a certain area) of a certain country or region, a dot density map would be useful. If one dot is equal to 100,000 people, we could look at a dot density map and see very clearly that when there are more dots, there are more people. Likewise, where there are fewer dots, the map is informing us that there are fewer people.
Why are most maps inaccurate? Explain with as much detail as possible.
Maps are inaccurate representations of Earth, because Earth is a sphere. It's impossible to flatten a sphere and make it into a perfect rectangle. When cartographers create maps, sizes and/or shapes of landmasses will change because they will get stretched out. For example, on the mercator projection, a country's shape remains similar. However, the further a country is from the equator the more it gets stretched out and appears much larger than it actually is. Greenland will appear to be about the same size as Africa when in reality, it's only a small fraction of the same size compared to the African continent.