href="#u861311d4-269b-5ca4-a18a-bc75a9b23fb4">Chapter 2, which shows you how to think like a geographer, is very much about understanding the world in spatial terms. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are devoted to location and maps, and, therefore, focus rather directly on this element. In addition, several other chapters will contain at least one map. Thus, you will encounter the world in spatial terms again and again throughout this book.
What locations are like: Places and regions
What’ll it be for your next vacation? The mountains? The shore? Chances are you have mulled over questions like these that concern different areas with different characteristics. If so, then you are already familiar with places and regions.
Place: What a location looks like
Place responds to another important geographical question: “What is it like?” Place refers to the human and physical features that characterize different parts of Earth and that are responsible for making one location look different from the next. The terminology may puzzle you, because in everyday speech, people commonly use location and place interchangeably. In geography, however, these two terms have separate and distinct meanings. Location tells you where. Place tells you what it’s like. In other words, places are locations to which humans have assigned meaning.
Take, for example, the proliferation of streets in the United States named after Martin Luther King, Jr. Are they locations? Sure, they are. They have specific addresses along them and they occupy space in hundreds of cities. But I think that we can also agree that they are imbued with much meaning and create unique places. Further, where they are located also says a lot about the people, history, politics, and so on in the neighborhoods where we find them.
Region: A bunch of locations with something in common
A region is an area of Earth, large or small, that has one or more things in common. So when you say “I’m going to the mountains” or “I’m heading for the shore,” you refer to an area — a region — that has a certain set of characteristics over a broad area.
Regions make it easier to comprehend our Earthly home. After all, Earth consists of gazillions of locations, each of which has its own particular and peculiar characteristics. Knowing every last one of them would be impossible. But we can simplify the challenge by grouping together contiguous locations that have one or more things in common — Gobi Desert, Islamic realm, tropical rainforest, Chinatown, the Great Lakes, suburbia — each of these is a region. Some are big and some are small. Some refer to physical characteristics. Some refer to human characteristics. Some do both. But each facilitates the task of understanding the world.
Features that characterize different locations on Earth and, therefore, epitomize the concept of place, will be the focus of several chapters. These include landforms (Chapters 6 and 7), climates (Chapter 10), population (Chapter 11), culture (Chapter 13), economic activity (Chapter 15), and urbanization (Chapter 17). Each of these characteristics, of course, pertains not only to particular locations, but also to large areas as well. Thus, they also serve to characterize and define regions.
Why things are the way they are: Physical systems
I bet you have a favorite time of year, a favorite season. You probably also have a least-favorite season. No doubt you can tell me why you like some seasons more than others, and you can probably sprinkle your rationale with personal anecdotes about good times and bad. If that sounds about right, then you are already familiar with physical systems.
Atmosphere, land, and water are the principal components of the physical world. Geography seeks to understand how these phenomena vary from one location to the next and why. Geographers aren’t content to know what the world looks like. They also want to know how it works. Why do islands like Aruba (near South America) and Socotra (off the Arabian peninsula), thousands of miles apart, have similar climates but differing land features? That involves understanding the natural processes that shape and modify Earth’s surface (see Chapters 6 and 7), cause particular climates to occur in particular places (see Chapters 9 and 10), or result in some parts of Earth having too little water and others too much (see Chapter 8).
Giving that human touch: Human systems
Have you ever visited a locale that has many more or many fewer people than where you live? Have you ever moved a long distance? Have you ever visited a foreign country? Have you ever noticed that most of your shoes and clothing are made in a foreign country? Have you ever attempted to talk to someone, only to discover that person does not speak your language? Have you ever tried a very different cuisine (such as polishing off a mopane worm in South Africa as I have done)? If so, then you are already familiar with human systems.
Human beings characterize Earth’s surface. That is, not only do humans live here, but by constructing cities, making farms, laying railways, and building other things, humans are an actual part of Earth’s surface. Culture, trade, commerce, and government largely determine the specific ways in which people are part of Earth. And because these institutions are so diverse, so, too, are the human characteristics that are part of Earth’s surface. Key aspects of human geography will be dealt with in separate chapters. They include population characteristics (see Chapter 11), movement and migration (see Chapter 12), cultural attributes (see Chapter 13), division of Earth into political units (see Chapter 14), economic activity (see Chapter 15), and urbanization (see Chapter 17).
Interacting with the world around us: Environment and society
Do you remember a farm or piece of countryside that is now a shopping center or a housing development? Have you ever experienced air pollution or water pollution? Have you ever had to cope with a severe storm, flood, or earthquake?
