APHUG U1: Vocab #2

Eratosthenes

The head librarian at Alexandria during the third century BC; one of the first cartographers(Greek). Accurately computed the earth’s circumference, coined the phrase “Geography“

Carl Sauer

From UC-Berkley, defined cultural landscape(results from interaction between humans and environment; no landscape has escaped alteration by humans)

Absolute Distance

The distance that can be measured with a standard unit of length

Accessibility

The relative ease with which a destination may be reached from some other place

Cartographic Scale

Refers to the way the map communicates the ratio of its size to the size of what it represents

Census

An official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details of individuals

Clustered

Clustered together but not coherent

Complementarity

The actual or potential relationship between two places, usually referring to economic interactions

Connectivity

The degree of economic, social, cultural, or political connection between two places

Coordinate system

A standard grid, composed of lines of latitude and longitude, used to determine the absolute location of any object, place or feature on the Earth’s surface.

Dispersed

When a phenomenon is relatively far apart

Dispersion

When spacing of people within geographic population boundaries

Elevation

Height above a given level, especially sea level

Field Observation

Is used to refer to the act of physically visiting a location, place, or region and recording, firsthand, information there

Friction of Distance

The measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between two places

Geoid

The actual shape of the Earth, which is rough and oblate, or slightly squashed; the earth’s circumference is longer around the equator than it is along the meridians

Global Scale

Set of digital maps that cover the whole globe to express the status of global environment

Intervening Opportunities

The idea that one place has a demand for some good or service and two places have a supply of equal price and quality, then the closer of the two suppliers to the buyer will represent an intervening opportunity, thereby blocking the third from being able to share its supply of goods or services. These are frequently utilized because transportation costs usually decrease with proximity

Landscape Analysis

The process of describing and interpreting the landscape ecology of an area.

Large-Scale

Relatively small ratio between map units and ground units. These maps usually have higher resolution and cover much smaller regions than other certain maps.

Local Scale

Spatial region equivalent to that of a community

Media Reports

In general, “media“ refers to various means of communication, For example, television, radio, and the newspaper are different types of media.

National scale

Spatial region equivalent that of a country

Natural Landscape

The physical landscape or environment that has not been affected by human activities

Natural Resources

Materials or substances such as minerals, forests, water, and fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain

Online Visualization

Use of sophisticated software to create dynamic computer maps, some of which are three-dimensional or interactive

Photographic Interpretation

Acts of examining images for the purpose of identifying objects and judging for their significance

Policy Document

Specifies the rules, guidelines, and regulations that your organization/country requires employees/citizens to follow

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

The value of data in the form of counts or numbers where each data-set has an unique numerical value associated with it. Is usually collected for statistical analysis using surveys, polls or questionnaires sent across to a specific section of a population.

Regional Scale

Interaction occurring within a region in a regional setting

Relative Distance

A measure of distance that includes the cost of overcoming the friction of absolute distance separating two places. Often it describes the amount of social, cultural, or economic connectivity between two places

Resolution

A map’s smallest discernible unit.

Sense of Place

Feelings evoked by people as a result of certain experiences and memories associated with a particular place

Small-Scale

Map scale ratio in which the ratio of units on the map to units on the earth is quite small. These maps usually depict large areas

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 phenomena 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

Transferability

The costs involved in moving goods from one place to another

Cartograms

Thematic Map; transforms space such that the political unit with the greatest value for some type of data represented by the largest relative unit

Choropleth Map

Thematic map; uses tones or colors to represent spatial data as average values per unit area

Cognitive Map

An image of a portion of the Earth’s surface that an individual creates in his or her mind. It can include knowledge of actual locations and relationships between locations as well as personal perceptions and preferences of particular places

Conic Projection

Type of map projection where direction is not constant and longitude lines converge at only one pole

Distortion

On a map or image, the misrepresentation of shape, area, distance, or direction of or between geographic features when compared to their true measurements on the curved surface of the earth

Dot Maps

Thematic map; shows precise locations of specific observations or occurrences, such as crimes, car accidents, or births

Isoline

Map line that connects points of equal or very similar values

Preference Map

A map that displays individual preferences for certain places

Proportional/Graduated Symbol Map

Thematic map; size of a chosen symbol-such as a circle or triangle- indicates the relative magnitude of some statistical value for given geographic region

Reference Map

A map that shows reference information for a particular place, making it useful for finding landmarks and for navigating

Thematic Map

A type of map that displays one or more variables, such as population or income level, within a particular area

Thematic layers

Individual maps of specific features that are overlaid on one another in a GIS to understand and analyze a spatial relationship

Topographic Map

Maps that use isolines to represent constant elevations. If u took it out into the field and walked exactly along the path of an isoline on your map, you would always stay at the same elevation

Good-Homolosine

Is a pseudo cylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps. Normally it is presented with multiple interruptions. Its equal-area property makes it useful for presenting spatial distribution of phenomena

Mercator Projection

A true conformal cylindrical map projection, this projection is particularly useful for navigation because it maintains accurate direction. These projections are famous for their distortion of area that makes landmasses at the poles seem oversized.

Peters Projection

A world map projection in which areas are shown in correct proportion at the expense of distorted shape, using a rectangular decimal grid to replace latitude and longitude

Robinson Projection

Projection that attempts to balance several possible projection errors. it does not maintain completely accurate area, shape, distance, or direction, but it minimizes errors in each