| A | B |
|---|
| anthropogenic | Human-induced changes on the natural environment |
| cartography | Theory and practice of making visual representations of the earth's surface in the form of maps |
| cultural ecology | The study of the interactions between societies and the natural environments they live in |
| cultural landscape | The human-modified natural landscape specifically containing the imprint of a particular culture of society |
| earth system science | Systematic approach to physical geography that looks at the interaction between the earth's physical systems and processes on a global scale |
| environmental geography | The intersection between human and physical geography, which explores the spatial impacts humans have on the physical environment and vice versa |
| Eratosthenes | The head librarian at Alexandria during the third century B.C.; he was one of the first cartographers. Performed a remarkably accurate computation of the earth's circumference. He is also credited with coining the term "geography." |
| Fertile Crescent | name given to crescent-shaped area of fertile land stretching from the lower Nile valley, along the east Mediterranean coast, and into Syria and present-day Iraq where agriculture and early civilization first began about 8000 B.C. |
| Geographic Information Systems | A set of computer tools used to capture, store, transform, analyze, and display geographic data |
| Global Positioning System | A set of satellites used to help determine location anywhere on the earth's surface with a portable electronic device |
| idiographic | Pertaining to the unique facts or characteristics of a particular place |
| George Perkins Marsh | Inventor, diplomat, politician, and scholar, his classic wor, Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, provided the first description of the extent to which natural systems had been impacted by human actions |
| natural landscape | The physcial landscape or environment that has not been affected by human activities |
| nomothetic | Concepts or rules that can be applied universally |
| W.D. Pattison | He claimed that geography drew from four distinct traditions: the earth-science tradition, the culture-environment tradition, the lcoational tradition, and the area-analysis tradition |
| physcial geography | The realm of geography that studies the structures, processes, distributions, and change through time of the natural phenomena of the earth's surface |
| Ptolemy | Roman geographer-astronomer and author of Guide to Geography which included maps containing a grid system of latitude and longitude |
| qualitative data | Data associated with a more humanistic approach to geography, often collected through interviews, empirical observations, or the interpretation of texts, artwork, old maps, and other archives |
| quantitative data | Data associated with mathematical models and statistical techniques |
| region | A territory that encompasses many places that share similar attributes (may be physical, cultural, or both) in comparison with the attributes of places elsewhere |
| regional geography | The study of geographic regions |
| remote sensing | Observation and mathematical measurement of the earth's surface using aircraft and satellites. The sensors include both photographic images, thermal images, multispectral scanners, and radar images |
| Carl Sauer | Geographer from the University of California at Berkeley who defined the concept of cultural landscape as the fundamental unit of geographical analysis. This landscape results from interaction between humans and the physical environment. Sauer argued that virtually no landscape has escaped alteration by human activities |
| sense of place | Feelings evoked by people as a result of certaina experiences and memories associated with a particular place |
| spatial perspective | An intellectual framework that looks at the particular locations of specific phenomena, how and why that phenomena is where it is, and, finally, how it is spatially related to pehnomena in other places |
| sustainability | The concept of using the earth's resources in such a way that they provide for people's needs in the present without diminishing the earth's ability to provide for future generations |
| systematic geography | The study of hte earth's integrated systems as a whole, instead of focusing on particular phenomena in a single place |
| thematic layers | Individual maps of specific features that are overlaid on one another in a Geographical Information System to understand and analyze a spatial relationship |
