Human Geography: Places and

Regions in Global Context, 5e

Chapter 1: Geography Matters
Paul L. Knox & Sallie A. Marston
PowerPoint Author: Keith M. Bell
 Chapter Objectives
• The objectives of this chapter are to
illustrate:
– Why places matter
– How geography matters
– The basic tools required for understanding
geography
 Overview
This chapter introduces the basic concepts of human geography as well as the
reasons for its study. The students should immediately realize that human
geography is not merely memorizing the names of state capitals or of other
landscape features.
• The key concept in Chapter 1 is globalization. We live in
an increasingly interdependent world, in which events in
one place can have important effects and ramifications in
other places.
• The students should be aware of just how
interconnected and interdependent their community is
with other places around the world. They should also be
aware of what makes each place, including their own
community, unique and distinctive.
• Finally, they should realize that human geography is the
field of study that analyzes these relationships.
 Geography Matters
Geography matters because it is
specific places that provide the settings
for people’s daily lives.

Places and regions are highly

interdependent, each playing
specialized roles in complex networks
of interaction and change.

Interdependence between geographic

scales are provided by the relationships
between the global and the local.

Human geography provides ways of

understanding places, regions, and
spatial relationships.

“Everything is related to everything

else, but near things are more related
than are distant things.”

Connectivity and interaction are

dependent on channels of
communications and transportation.
 Why Places Matter: Geographic Literacy
The importance of geography (i.e., spatial science) is becoming more
widely recognized. Many more schools now require courses in geography
than just a decade ago. Employers are coming to realize the value of
employees with expertise in geographical analysis.
The Influence and Meaning of
Places
• Places are settings for social
interaction that, among other things,
– structure the daily routines of
people’s economic and social lives;
– provide both opportunities and
constraints in terms of people’s long-
term social well-being;
– provide a context in which everyday,
common sense knowledge and
experience are gathered;
– provide a setting for processes of
socialization; and
– provide an arena for contesting
social norms.
Spatial Levels
• Levels or scales of spatial
organization represent a
tangible partitioning of space.
– World regions
• Asia, Europe, or Latin America
– Supranational organizations
• NAFTA, European Union, ASEAN,
World Trade Organization
– De Jure States
• Legally recognized political entities
– Body and Self
• Physical appearance and socially
acceptable norms
Geographers at Work
• International Affairs
• Locations of Public Facilities
• Marketing and Location of
Industry
• Geography and the Law
• Disease Ecology
• Urban and Regional Planning
• Economic Development
– The global credit crunch left
the world economy facing the
prospect of recession.
• Security
People develop patterns of living that are attuned to the
opportunities and constraints of local physical environment.
Interdependence in a Globalizing World
• Globalization is the increasing interconnectedness of different
parts of the world through common processes of economic,
environmental, political, and cultural change.
• The Hyperglobalist View
– Open markets, free trade, and investment across the global markets
allow more people to share in the prosperity of the world economy.
• The Skeptical View
– Contemporary economic integration is much less significant than it was
when the world was on the gold standard in the nineteenth century.
• The Transformationalist View
– Globalization is a long-term historical process that is underlain by crises
and contradictions that are likely to shape it in all sorts of unpredictable
ways.
 The Human “Footprint”

Notice that the “footprint” is largely absent in places that are

too wet, dry, cold, or hot for wide spread human habitation
(e.g., Antarctica, Sahara Desert, Amazonia, Siberia).
 Window on the World
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Zug, Switzerland

The Sormolo Family of Ethiopia and the Rust Family of Switzerland live “worlds
apart.” One family ekes out a living on $280 a year, while the other thrives on
$68,000. What geographical factors played a role in this disparity?
N

S
 Key Issues in a Globalizing World: Sustainability
Sustainability is about the interdependence of the economy, the environment, and social
well-being. It is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
 Diffusion of HIV

Where does the medical and geographical evidence point as the origin of
the HIV/AIDS pandemic?
The Geography of HIV/AIDS

What historical, geographical, and social factors contribute to

Sub-Saharan Africa being so stricken with HIV/AIDS?
The new mobility of money, labor, products, and ideas
actually increases the significance of place:

• The more universal the diffusion of material culture and

lifestyles, the more valuable regional and ethnic identities
become.

• The faster the information highway takes people into

cyberspace, the more they feel the need for a subjective setting
—a specific place or community—they can call their own.

• The greater the reach of transnational corporations, the more

easily they are able to respond to place-to-place variations.

• The greater the integration of transnational governments and

institutions, the more sensitive people have become to local
cleavages of race, ethnicity, and religion.
 Studying Human Geography
• Physical geography deals with Earth’s
natural processes and its outcomes.
• Human geography deals with the
spatial organization of human activities,
and with people’s relationship with their
environments.
• Regional geography combines elements
of both physical and human geography.
• Applied geography: fieldwork,
laboratory work, archival searches,
remote sensing, and GIS (input,
manipulation, analysis, etc.)
 Remotely Sensed Data: Aerial Photographs
Remotely sensed images can provide new ways of seeing the world, as well as unique sources of data on all
sorts of environmental conditions. Such images can help explain problems and processes that would
otherwise require expensive surveys and detailed cartography.
Balintawak interchange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balintawak_Interchange#/media/File:Balinta
wak_Interchange_in_1968.png
 Studying Human Geography
• Latitude/Longitude
• Site/Situation
• Distance
– Cognitive (mental, spiritual)
– Friction (degree to which
distance interferes with
some interaction)
– Distance-decay function
(Interaction between two
places declines as the The spatial diffusion of many phenomena
distance between the two tends to follow an S-curve of slow build-
places increases up, rapid spread, and leveling off.
Latitude and longitude are imaginary (unreal) lines drawn on maps to easily
locate places on the Earth.

Latitude is distance north or south of the equator (an imaginary circle

around the Earth halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole)

Longitude is distance east or west of the prime meridian (an imaginary line
running from north to south through Greenwich, England). Both are
measured in terms of the 360 degrees (symbolized by °) of a circle.

Source:
https://www.geovista.psu.edu/grants/MapStatsKids/MSK_portal/concepts
_latlg.html
Source:
https://www.google.com.ph/search?q=latitude+longitude+meaning&source=l
nms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs9e_x4fDcAhWoyoUKHa_DCjIQ_AUI
CigB&biw=1517&bih=646#imgrc=JPWrTImTsde2_M
:
Spatial Interaction (how
places interact through
movement)
• Complementarity
• Transferability
• Intervening opportunity
 Complementarity
• For two places to
interact, one place
must have a supply of
an item for which there
is an effective demand.
• Example: product: Oil -
Interaction: US - Middle East
 What is Effective Demand?
• Desire for the item
(demand)
• Purchasing Power -
$$$
• Means to transport
the product - rail,
road, internet, ship
etc.
Transferability
• Refers to mobility of
a commodity
• Spatial interaction
occurs only when
acceptable costs of
an exchange are
met.
• Costs include both
Time and Money
 Transferability Function of Three
Conditions.
• Characteristics and value of product.
• The distance measured in time and money.
• The ability of the commodity to bear the costs
of movement.
– Both physical and economic.
– If the time and money costs are too great
interaction does not occur.
– Buyer seeks substitute or goes without product.
 Intervening Opportunity
• Closer opportunities will
reduce the the
attractiveness of interaction
with more distant- even
slightly better- alternatives.
• Example -ski area in Big
B
Bear. The snow is not as
good as Tahoe. But people
in Southern Calif. are more
C likely to ski in Big Bear.

A
 Spatial Analysis

Like distance, space can be measured in absolute, relative, and cognitive

terms. Topological space are the connections between, or connectivity of,
particular points in space.
Regionalization
• The geographer’s equivalent of
scientific classification is
regionalization, with the
individual places or areal units
being the objects of classification.
– Logical division— “classification
from above”
– Grouping—“classification from
below”
– Formal regions
– Functional regions
• Donald Meinig’s core-domain-
sphere model of the Mormon
region
– Regionalism
– Sectionalism
– Irridentism
 Ordinary Landscapes: Community Art
Community art can provide an important element in the creation of a sense of place for members of
local communities. It displays an “ordinary landscape” (or vernacular landscape) in the Mission
district in San Francisco.
 Symbolic Landscapes: Tuscany
Symbolic landscapes represent particular values or aspirations that the builders
and financiers of those landscapes want to impart to the larger public, like the
neoclassical architecture of the federal government buildings in Washington,
D.C., or the Risorgimento of the classical Tuscan landscape.
National Museum: https://ph.asiatatler.com/life/your-first-
look-inside-the-national-museum-of-natural-history
 The Power of Place
Ireland England

The West of Ireland came to symbolize the whole of Ireland to Irish

nationalists in the early twentieth century, as opposed to the more bucolic
rural landscape ideal of England (its former colonial master).
 Regional Analysis: A Sense of Place
Intersubjectivity, or the shared meanings that are derived from the lived experience of everyday
practice, is how people become familiar with one another’s vocabulary, speech patterns, dress codes,
gestures, and humor. Routine encounters in Waldkirch, Germany develop the sense of place.
 Developing a
Geographical
Imagination
It is useful to think of places
and regions as representing the
cumulative legacy of
successive periods of change.

This photograph of Milan,

Italy, is a very striking
example, with modern urban
development interlayered with
surviving fragments of
Medieval, Renaissance, and
nineteenth-century
development.
 Recognizing the
General and the Unique
Some places, like Hersbruck,
Germany, become distinctive
because they were almost
entirely bypassed by a period of
change. Notice the narrow street
and old world architecture.

Changes could have come to

other towns and cities in the form
of the Industrial Revolution or
the construction of a new
highway or railroad. Thus, the
interconnectedness of urban
systems is key to integration.
The Global Perspective
• Each place, each region, is largely
the product of forces that are both
local and global in origin.
• Each is ultimately linked to many
other places and regions through
these same forces.
• The individual character of places
and regions cannot be accounted
for by general processes alone.
Some local outcomes are the
product of unusual circumstances
or special local factors.
End of Chapter 1
 Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• Ask the students to define the meaning of
“house” and “home.” How are these terms
different? Then note that human geography
studies how human beings have transformed
their Earthly “house” into a “home” or
“homeland.”
– “House” suggests a physical structure for which we
may or may not have any personal attachment,
while “home” suggests a place we know, originate
from, and feel some kind of personal attachment
towards.
 Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• Ask the students what they ate and drank for
breakfast. Then ask them to state the likely
origins for these foods and beverages
(Ecuadorian bananas, Brazilian coffee, Florida
oranges, etc.). How do the local community
and the source regions for these products
depend on each other?
– The local community needs to import items that
cannot be produced locally, whereas source regions
depend on external communities for markets.
 Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• Have the students describe both the site and
the situation of the university campus. What is
the relationship between the site and the
situation?
– The site refers to the physical attributes of a place,
such as its terrain, soil, and vegetation. The
situation refers to the location of the place relative to
other places—for example, in the case of a
university campus, to other parts of the community
or to given streets or parks.
 Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• Have the students draw maps of the local
area. Then have them compare these maps
with each other (or make slides out of several
of them and then discuss them in class). How
do different students perceive their
environment? What aspects did all students
identify as important? How do these maps
reflect cognitive images?
– Cognitive images are made up from people’s
individual ideas and impressions of a location.
 Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• What is the main economic activity in the local area?
How does the local economy interact with other non-
local economies and regions? What regions does the
local area depend on for its exports and imports?
Discuss economic activity in the context of the
concepts of complementarity, transferability,
intervening opportunity, and spatial diffusion.
– Information on local economic activity can often be obtained
from the local Chamber of Commerce or other business
associations—also try Internet sources for information about
the local community. See the textbook for information about
the concepts of complementarity, transferability, intervening
opportunity, and spatial diffusion.
 Discussion Topics and Lecture
Themes
• Choose two American cities for which
illustrations or slides are readily available.
Choose places that are contrasting, yet still
American, such as Los Angeles/New York
City, or Williamsburg, VA/Santa Fe, NM. What
makes these places distinct? What do they
have in common? Why do these places look
the way they do?
– A good starting point for this discussion is the five
concepts of spatial analysis—location, distance,
space, accessibility, and spatial interaction. See
pages 22–30 in the textbook for elaboration of these
concepts.