Geographers study the world using five main themes: location, place, regions, movement, and human-environment interaction. Location describes the absolute and relative positions of places on Earth. Place examines the unique physical and human characteristics that define an area. Regions group places that share common traits. Movement considers how people, goods, and cultures change over time. Human-environment interaction analyzes how humans use and impact the environment and how they adapt to environmental changes.

1. The Study of Geography
Understanding the World We Live In

2. Objectives
• Students will explain how geographers use tools
to understand the world.
• Students will identify and discuss the
importance of the five themes of geography.

3. Vocabulary I
• geography - the study of the earth’s surface and
the processes that shape it, the connections
between places and the complex relationships
between people and their environments
• absolute location - the position on the earth in
which a place can be found
• relative location - the position of a place in
relation to another place

4. Vocabulary II
• hemisphere - a half of the earth; the Equator
divides the Northern and Southern hemispheres;
the Prime Meridian divides the Eastern and
Western hemispheres
• perception - a viewpoint that is influenced by
one’s own culture and experiences
• character of a place - the physical and human
characteristics that help to distinguish a place
from other places

5. Geographic Tools
• Living in an ever-changing world, humans develop
tools to better understand those changes
• Geography is the study that helps us track those
changes
• most important is the ability to examine those
changes from many perspectives
• Use of modern technology helps us track many
changes
• SONAR (ocean floor), Landsat (remote sensing),
GPS, GIS (geographic information systems)

6. Geographic Concepts
• Think in terms of how the earth is ever changing
(both in terms of it’s own change and how
humans change it)
• Maps, charts and so on
help describe those changes
• So do geographic concepts
• Process of thinking geographically leads to
understanding of our world and our place in it

7. The Five Themes
• Geographers think of our world in 5 basic
themes
• Location
• Place
• Regions
• Movement
• Human-Environment Interaction
• MR. HELP

8. Location: Absolute
• Usually the first step to identifying a place -
finding it’s location
• Absolute location is it’s position on the globe
• Latitude and longitude
• Latitude: imaginary lines that run parallel to
the Equator (line that divides the Earth into
two hemispheres - north and south)
• Longitude: imaginary lines that run between
poles starting at Prime Meridian

10. Relative Location
• Relative location - describes where something is
in relation to other places
• St. Louis is several
hundred miles east
of Kansas City
• 1850 - trip would
take a week or so;
2012 - 4-5 hour by
car (less than an
hour by plane)

11. Place
• How is a particular place
unique?
• Things that define this are
both physical characteristics
and human characteristics -
the character of a place
• Physical: terrain, ecosystems,
climate, so on
• Human: Culture, numbers of
people living, working,
economy

12. Regions
• Those characteristics of a group of places with at
least one common factor
• Boundaries or definitions of a particular region
usually depend on the perceptions based on
culture and experience
• Broken down into three
types of regions: formal,
functional, perceptual

13. Formal Regions
• Certain characteristics are found throughout the
area
• Political regions - states, countries, cities ---
boundaries that have common laws
• Other common
characteristics - Wheat
Belt
• Chinatown

14. Functional Regions
• Central place and the
surrounding places affected
by it
• Amazon drainage basin in
South America
• Dallas-Fort Worth
• Northeast Mega-Region

15. Perceptual Regions
• Defined by people’s feelings and attitudes about
areas
• Kansas: MidWest or
Great Plains?
• Mexico: North
America or Central
and South America?

16. Movement
• Movement of people, culture, goods will change
the overall definition of an area
• New Orleans: Founded in 1700s - port city at the
base of the Mississippi River
• 1800s - Railroad changed the needs of
transportation
• 1900s - Limited importance in
local economy, adapted by late
1900s (tourism, oil & gas
production)

17. Human-Environment Interaction
• How do people use their environment? How does that
impact the landscape and how people respond to that
change?
• Thousands of years: Proximity to water determined
where civilization grew - Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc.
• Why do millions of people live in Phoenix, Arizona?