Geography - AP Human Geography

The five themes to geography are: location, region, movement, place, and human-environment interaction. Time is important because all of these things change over time, but it is not considered a foundational theme of geography as a discipline.

Eratosthenes was an Ancient Greek mathematician and geographer who is notable for determining the circumference of the Earth using geometry. By measuring the sun’s angles from two separate places at the same time, on the same day, he was able to determine that the circumference of the Earth was around 46,000 km. Modern conclusions show that he was only off by a few hundred kilometers, a remarkable achievement for the third century BCE.

The geographer William Morris Davis is often credited with being the “father of American geography.” He wrote his seminal piece on the cycle of erosion which focused on the effects of rivers on the surrounding landscape. Carl Ritter was German and was referred to as one of the "founders of modern geography." Carl Sauer was an American geographer and his work represents his emphasis on cultural geography. Ernest W. Burgess was a Canadian sociologist and is credited with the formation of the method of unit-weightless regression that could be used to predict the success/failure of inmates on parole. Arno Peters was a German historian.

A model is a simplified abstraction of reality, structured to clarify causal relationships. Globes and maps are both types of models.

Sharia law is the strict Islamic law that imposes often cruel punishments to lawbreakers.

As its name suggests, the Arabian peninsula is the home region of the Arabic language, which was then spread by conquering armies along with the Islamic religion in the sixth through eigth centuries. While many Muslim nations kept their native tongues, across North Africa, the common Greek tongue spoken there was generally replaced by Arabic. Still to this day, from Morocco to Egypt, Northern Africa is part of the larger Arabic world.

Studying geography and especially focusing on bodies of water and its interconnections with other aspects of geography, people groups, culture, etc. is known as marine geography. It should not be confused with marine biology, which is usually from a scientific view.

The Khanhill Desert does not exist. However, the Gobi, Arabian, and Sahara desert are all major deserts.

The Mediterranean is not considered one of the five oceans of the world. Rather, the oceans are the Atlantic, the Indian, the Pacific, the Arctic, and Southern.

The Southern Ocean, sometimes referred to as the Antarctic Ocean, surrounds Antarctica.

Switzerland is found in Western Europe. For much of human history Western Europe was a less developed region, in terms of human civilization. For several hundred years this changed with the emergence of the Roman Empire in modern-day Italy, but after the fall of the Roman Empire circa 500 C.E. the region returned to a place of relative insignificance. This all changed during the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution when philosophy, scientific inquiry, technological innovation, and personal liberty flourished in a way never previously seen in human history. This all begat the Industrial Revolution, which led to a European hegemony over the world. Today Western Europe continues to be of greater significance on the world stage than its population size and land size would logically suggest.

The Ruhr Valley is found in western Germany, near the border with France. It is the industrial center of Europe and has been since the end of the nineteenth century (not including some interruptions due to the two devastating world wars of the twentieth century). For much of the nineteenth century Northern England was the center of European industry, but the production of the Ruhr Valley overtook that of Northern England around the 1890s.

Syria is found in South-West Asia. South-West Asia has often served as a relatively significant part of the world throughout human history. It includes all of the region generally referred to as the “Middle East”; it is where agriculture first emerged in the region sometimes called “Mesopotamia” and sometimes called “The Fertile Crescent”; and due to its position as an intermediary between Europe, Africa, and Asia it has long been a center of global trade and a facilitator for the exchange of ideas.

Siberia is the name given to the massive region of eastern and northern Russia. It is incredibly sparsely populated and mineral rich. It has long been a source of fur, timber, coal, and iron ore for Russian rulers and the Russian people, and in more recent decades has been one of the world’s leading producers of petroleum and natural gas.

Indonesia is found in South East Asia. Japan is found in East Asia. South East Asia is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet and includes such countries as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Turkey and Russia are the two countries in the world which overlap two continents, Europe and Asia. In Turkey, from Istanbul to the north is on the continent of Europe while the rest of the country lies in Asia. While the majority of Russia's land mass is in Asia, the majority of population and its economic centers are in Europe.

Culturally Geographers tend to group Russia with Europe as it is more similar to European cultures including language, food, and also ethnicity. Economically Russia also lines up with Europe more than Asia. However, the majority of the land area of Russia is East of the Ural mountains, placing it on the Asian continent.

Culturally Geographers usually group Turkey within the Middle East, a region of Asia. Although the city of Istanbul is half in Europe and half in Asia. Also, culturally Istanbul has a more European influence. The major religion in Turkey is Islam, which influences many Geographers to group Turkey with other countries of this similarity --the Middle Eastern countries.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are two countries which Geographers disagree on which region to place in. However, neither is considered to be in the region of Europe. The debate between Geographers on these countries is whether they are part of the region known as the "Middle East" or part of the "Central Asia" region. Location would deem them part of Central Asia, but culture is more similar to the Middle East.

Egypt is also debated by Geographers. Yet again, however, Egypt is never considered as part of Europe. The two regions that Geographers switch Egypt back and forth between are the Middle East and Saharan Africa. More often, Geographers settle on grouping Egypt with Saharan Africa as many of the countries in this region have a more Middle Eastern culture but geographically are located entirely on the continent of Africa. However, Egypt is not entirely located within the boarders of the African Continent. The Sinai, a very important historic and economic part of Egypt lies on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula, on the continent of Asia and in the region of the Middle East.

Though the majority of Geographers can agree on distinct regional divisions, there are always debates with these particular countries. So in the end, it really takes a lot of understanding and is a matter of circumstance for dividing the world into distinct regions.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in London. This time zone encompasses the Prime Meridian, seeing as it is located at 0 degrees longitude!

The terminology that describes the region that includes Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria is known as the Maghreb. It was an especially popular area during the colonization era.

Global Positioning System, or GPS, is commonly used to determine an individual's exact location on Earth. GPS utilizes a satellite navigation system to provide location information anywhere on Earth.

Remote sensing refers to the process of taking pictures of the Earth’s surface from satellites (or, earlier, airplanes) to provide a greater understanding of the Earth’s geography over large distances. The ability to use airborne vehicles to take pictures of the Earth’s surface has been instrumental for geographers in the last century and has greatly advanced the sum of human understanding about the geography and composition of the Earth.