Map Projection & Tools
A map projection that makes Greenland look much larger than it is, but is useful for navigation because it keeps lines of latitude and longitude at right angles.
What is the Mercator Projection?
The specific position of a place on Earth, often expressed using latitude and longitude coordinates and compass directions.
What is absolute location?
This type of diffusion occurs when an idea spreads from a top-down approach, leaping from one important person or city to another.
What is hierarchical diffusion?
The type of data that is based on numerical values, such as "how many" or "how often."
What is quantitative data?
A naturally occurring material or substance, like minerals or fertile land, that can be used for economic gain.
What is a natural resource?
A map where one inch equals one hundred miles would be considered this type of map scale.
What is a small scale map?
This describes a place's physical characteristics, such as its climate, terrain, and soil.
What is site?
The spread of an idea from a single origin point, where everyone in the area is affected.
What is contagious diffusion?
The process of arranging raw data in a visually useful way, often done to create a thematic map.
What is data aggregation?
The type of resource that can be replenished naturally over time, such as solar, wind, or water.
What are renewable resources?
The five main parts that a cartographer should include on a map.
What are titles, legends/keys, scales, compasses, and symbols?
The idea that geographers should not just describe where things are, but also explain why they are there.
What is spatial analysis?
When an individual or a group physically moves to a new location, bringing their ideas and practices with them, this type of diffusion occurs.
What is relocation diffusion?
This map uses dots to represent a specific number or count of a phenomenon, such as population.
What is a dot density or dot distribution map?
This is the study of the complex interactions between societies and their local environments.
What is cultural ecology?
The name for a map that distorts the size and shape of an area to show the intensity of a particular phenomenon, like a country's population.
What is a cartogram?
The visible evidence of human activity on the landscape, like farm fields, houses, and cities, is known as this.
What is cultural landscape?
The idea that the physical environment offers potentiality for human development, and people can overcome challenges, is known as this.
What is possibilism?
This type of map is designed to show the geographic distribution of a specific subject, often represented with colors, patterns, symbols, or other visual elements.
What is a thematic map?
The term for the mental images that make up a person's understanding of nature, which can be either accurate or inaccurate.
What is environmental perception?
This software application can capture, store, and analyze geographic data, often using multiple layers.
What is a Geographic Information System (GIS)?
The decreasing distance between places, as measured by travel time or cost, often summarized by the phrase "the world is shrinking."
What is time-space compression?
The belief that the physical environment is the sole and dominant force in shaping cultures and human behavior.
What is environmental determinism?
The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet.
What is remote sensing?
This describes the intentional changes humans make to the environment, such as logging, mining, or building irrigation systems.
What is purposeful human-environmental interactions?