Geography For Dummies®
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Charles Heatwole is Professor of Geography and Chairperson of the Department of Geography at Hunter College of CUNY. He holds a B.A. in Social Studies Education from Florida Atlantic University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Geography from Michigan State University. In between those schools he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. He attributes his affinity for geography to a childhood passion for stamp collecting, frequent family relocations pursuant to his father’s work as a defense contractor’s field representative, and a superb high school geography teacher.
Charlie’s research has focused on cultural geography, and especially the geography of religion. He has also been involved in geographic education, serving five years as co-coordinator of the New York Geographic Alliance — a teacher training network affiliated with the National Geographic Society’s Geography Education Program. In that, and subsequent capacities, he has helped organize and conduct numerous workshops and institutes devoted to the teaching of geography.
Charles lives in Manhattan with his wife, Debbie, and daughter, Mary. He enjoys jogging and, of course, travel. His favorite professional activity is teaching Geography 101.
In grateful memory of the 343 members of the New York City Fire Department who perished in the events of September 11, 2001 and two very dear people from the National Geographic Society, Mr. Joe Ferguson and Ms. Ann Judge, who were aboard the airliner that struck the Pentagon.
This is the place where authors wax humble about how they couldn’t have done blah blah blah without the help of Tom, Dick, and Harry. Well, there’s a reason for that: they couldn’t have.
Thanks must go first of all to Carolyn Krupp, my agent at IMG Literary. It was she who telephoned out of the blue to tell me about this project and why I was the person to do it. To this day I have no idea how she got my name or number. In any event, “Thanks, Carolyn.”
At Hungry Minds, Inc., thanks also go to Linda Brandon, my editor, and Roxane Cerda, the acquisitions editor for this book. Both ladies were extremely helpful, encouraging, and patient when I needed it most. Through the magic of modern electronics, I was able to complete this book without ever meeting Linda and Roxanne face-to-face. Indeed, to this day I don’t know what either of them looks like. Ladies, I hope we meet someday. At the very least, I owe you lunch.
I thank everybody at Hunter College who indulged me in ways great and small while I was writing this. In my case at least, writing a book and being department chairperson proved incompatible. Something had to give; and more often than not it was my professional duties. Special thanks, therefore, are due to Anthony Grande, Assistant to the Chair, for doing so many little things that added up to a lot of time for me to work on this. Thanks also to my departmental colleagues Allan Frei, Ines Miyares, and Randye Rutberg for supplying several essential tidbits of information.
It has been my privilege to be acquainted with a number of outstanding K-12 teachers. Among other things, they taught me how much easier it is to borrow an idea than to invent one. I suspect this manuscript contains several quips and ideas which, though they popped up in my mind, probably originated in one of theirs. Proper attribution escapes me, so I’ll just say, “Thanks to you all.”
I want to thank all of the students I have had in my classes at Hunter College over the years. So much of this book is an outgrowth of classroom experience — things you say and do in class as a result of years of trial and error. If this book communicates effectively in whole or part, then much credit is due to the thousands of student guinea pigs who sat through my lectures.
Finally and most of all, thanks to my wife and daughter, Debbie and Mary, for being so loving, supportive, and basically putting up with this. They spent a lot of time together while daddy hunkered down. I was away too long.
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Geography is for life in every sense of that expression: lifelong, life-sustaining, and life-enhancing. Geography is a field of study that enables us to find answers to questions about the world around us—about where things are and how and why they got there. We can ask questions about things that seem very familiar and are often taken for granted.
Geography is the science of space and place on Earth’s surface. Its subject matter is the physical and human phenomena that make up the world’s environments and places. Geographers describe the changing patterns of places in words, maps, and geo-graphics, explain how these patterns come to be, and unravel their meaning. Geography’s continuing quest is to understand the physical and cultural features of places and their natural settings on the surface of Earth.
— Geography Education Standards Project. Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994. Washington, DC: National Geographic Research & Exploration.
B ack in the 1980’s professional geographers began to hear something about our field that we had rarely heard before. We began to hear some of our colleagues and acquaintances in other fields—educators, accountants, salespersons, doctors, systems analysts, draftspersons, tax collectors—admit to having liked geography when they were in school. A psychologist at my university told me about the wonderful cultural geography course he had taken as an undergraduate at a major east coast university. Any number of people came out of the closet and admitted that they had always liked to study maps. An anthropologist told me how as a child he had loved his United States puzzle map. Wow! This was a different experience than having people look puzzled, or worse, ask upon meeting you, “Haven’t all the places been discovered, located, and named already?”
What was happening, of course, was that the United States was gradually becoming aware that it’s citizens appalling lack of geographic knowledge of our own country and other places on Earth was a threat to its future economic, environmental, and political well-being. In a world shrunk by communications and transportation technologies, we must know where places are located, but even more we have to know about those places and the physical and human processes that shape them. At no time has the seriousness of the situation been more evident than on September 11, 2001. Horror and grief at the loss of innocent life binds us together as a people within our borders and beyond. We are reminded of our interdependence at local, regional, and global scales. As we are challenged to understand what happened, the question of “Where?” is at the forefront, again, at local, regional, and global scales.
Geography For Dummies provides the opportunity to gather information from an experienced teacher who is dedicated to solving the geographic literacy problems, which have been part of human culture for just too long. The opportunity is provided in an engaging way that doesn’t insult your intelligence. Geography For Dummies is an introduction to contemporary analytical geography for the lay person. The emphasis in this book is on geography as a field of inquiry framed by spatial and environmental perspectives about the places, environments, and cultures on Earth’s surface. The book reflects traditions and themes about which geographers have achieved a high degree of consensus both before and at the publication of Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994 (quoted previously). Geography For Dummies references the six essential elements of geography used as organizing concepts in Geography for Life.
Therefore, the content of this book reflects what geographers and geography educators have recommended as the most important geography stuff everyone should know.
— Ruth I. Shirey, PhD in Geography
Executive Director of the National Council For Geographic Education since 1988, Coordinator for the Pennsylvania Geographic Alliance since 1986, and Professor, Department of Geography and Regional Planning at Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Title
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I : Getting Grounded: The Geographic Basics
Chapter 1: Geography: Understanding a World of Difference
Geography: Making Sense of It All
Exposing Misconceptions: More Than Maps and Trivia
Taking a Look at the New Geography
Getting to the Essentials
Chapter 2: Thinking Like a Geographer
Changing the Way You Think — Geographically
Chapter 3: Grid and Bear It
Feeling Kind of Square
Telling Someone Where to Go
The Global Grid: Hip, Hip, Hipparchus!
Getting Lined Up
Chapter 4: Maps That Lie Flat Lie!
Seeing the Light: Map Projections
Realizing Exactly How Flat Maps Lie
Isn’t there a truthful map anywhere?
Different Strokes for Different Folks: A World of Projections
Mapping a Cartographic Controversy!
Chapter 5: Getting the Message of Maps
Checking Out the Basic Map Components
Taking It to Scale
Showing the Ups and Downs: Topography
Using Symbols to Tell the Story
Gathering Information: Sources for Pinpointing Objects
Getting Computerized
Part II : Getting Physical: Land, Water, and Air
Chapter 6: Taking Shape: The Land We Live On
Starting at the Bottom: Inside Earth
Getting Down to Theory: Earth Benedict?!
Making Mountains Out of Molehills
Experiencing Earthquakes: Shake, Rattle and Roll!
Subducting Plates: Volcano Makers
Chapter 7: Giving Earth a Facelift
Getting Carried Away
Changing the Landscape
Chapter 8: Water, Water Everywhere
Taking the Plunge: Global Water Supply
Shaping Our World: Oceans
Getting Fresh with Water
Chapter 9: Warming Up and Chilling Out: Why Climates Happen
Getting a Grip on Climate
Playing the Angles
Tilt-a-World: The Reasons for the Seasons
Hot or Cold? Adjust Your Altitude
Gaining Heat, Losing Heat
Going with the Flow: Ocean Currents
Living Under Pressure
Chapter 10: From Rainforests to Ice Caps: The Geography of Climates
Giving Class to Climates
Mixing Sun and Rain: Humid Tropical Climates
Going to Extremes: Dry Climates
Enjoying the In-between: Humid Mesothermal Climates
Cooling Off: Humid Microthermal Climates
Dropping Below Freezing: Polar Climates
Part III : Peopling the Planet
Chapter 11: Nobody Here but Us Six Billion
Going by the Numbers
Going Ballistic: Population Growth
Checking Behind the Curve: Population Change
Considering “Overpopulation”
Chapter 12: Shift Happens: Migration
Populating the Planet
Choosing to Migrate
Giving a Good Impression
Chapter 13: Culture: The Spice of Life and Place
Being Different 15,000 Times Over
Spreading the Word on Culture
Calling a Halt: Barrier Effects
Getting Religion: How It Moves and Grows
Getting in a Word about Language
Creating a Single Global Culture
Chapter 14: Where Do You Draw the Line?
Drawing and Re-Drawing the Boundaries of the World
Typecasting Boundary Lines
Living with the Consequences
Drawing Electoral District Boundaries
Part IV : Putting the Planet to Use
Chapter 15: Getting Down to Business
Categorizing Economic Activity
Putting Economic Systems into Place
Understanding Location Factors
Looking Toward Location Trends of Tomorrow
Chapter 16: An Appetite for Resources
Defining Resources and Assessing Their Importance
Differing Life Spans: Which Resources Are Here Today or Gone Tomorrow
Trading-off Resources: The Consequences of Resource Use
Chapter 17: CBD to Suburbia: Urban Geography
Studying the Urban Scene
Getting a Global Perspective
Getting Started: Urban Hearths
Finding Sites for Cities
Getting Big: Urban Growth
Looking Inside the City
Leaving Downtown, Living Downtown
Facing up to Environmental Issues
Chapter 18: Impacts on the Environment
Grasping the Basics — Environmentally Speaking
Contributing Factors: Pollution on the Move
Going Global: Multiple Sources Affect an Entire Population
Taking on the Challenges of Tomorrow
Part V : The Part of Tens
Chapter 19: Ten Organizations for Geographic Information
Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO), United States Department of Agriculture
American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM)
Association of American Geographers (AAG)
National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE)
National Geographic Society (NGS)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Population Reference Bureau (PRB)
United States Census Bureau
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Your State’s Geographic Alliance
Chapter 20: Ten Interesting Geographical Occupations
Air Photo Interpreter/Remote Sensing Analyst
Area Specialist
Cartographer/GIS Specialist
Educator
Environmental Manager
Health Services Planner
Location Analyst
Market Analyst
Transportation Planner
Urban Planner
Chapter 21: Ten Things You Can Forget
The Bermuda Triangle
Cold Canadian Air
“The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain”
“Coming Out of Nowhere”
Land of the Midnight Sun
Tropical Paradise
The Democratic Republic of . . .
The Seven Seas
The Flat Earth Society
“The Continent”
Chapter 22: Ten Great Geographical Web Sites
The About.com Geography Page
Digitalglobe.com
Mapquest.com
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
UNFAO
The U.S. Department of State’s Geographic Learning Site (GLS)
The Virtual Geography Department
Worldbank.org
WorldClimate.Com
World Resources Institute
T he best teacher I ever had taught geography at William R. Boone High School in Orlando, Florida. Her name was Mary Row, and it’s a shame you didn’t know her as I did — at the very least, it would have saved you the cost of this book.
Mrs. Row had an incredible knack for taking a class of tenth-graders and turning them into ex-dummies, at least with respect to geography. Indeed, some of the students who walked into her classroom on the first day of school simply didn’t give a hoot. I know. I was there. But when that lady got done with us, we were upstart experts on geography and loved the subject.
In retrospect, I believe a principal key to Mrs. Row’s success was her philosophy of geography. As far as she was concerned, Earth is a very fascinating place. The purpose of geography, as she saw it, is to convey the wonderment of it all and to explain how the world works. Thus, her lessons emphasized the interactions between the various things that characterized Earth’s surface and how they related to everyday life. So thanks to Mrs. Row, geography was not only the most interesting subject I studied in high school, but also the most relevant.
Hopefully, this volume will instill in you some measure of the wonderment that came my way those many years ago, and whet your appetite for more.
Introductory books on geography generally come in two varieties. This one takes a topical approach to the subject. That means the chapters focus on topics of interest to geography, such as maps, climate, population, and culture. I wanted this book to focus on the key concepts of geography and introduce you to a wide-range of geographic information. Basically, I thought those goals could best be achieved by taking a topical approach.
The alternative was to take a regional approach to geography, which is like a world tour. You know what I mean, right? Chapter 4: Europe. Chapter 5: Africa. And so forth. In all candor, I didn’t think I could give you a decent world tour in the allotted pages. Besides, books like that for people like you are already on the market, so why reinvent the wheel? More importantly, I wanted Geography For Dummies to emphasize geography rather than the world per se. That may cause you to say, “Wait a minute! Isn’t geography all about the world?” The answer is yes, but in a larger sense, geography is about a whole lot more. Specifically, it’s about concepts and processes and connections between things, plus maps and tools and perspectives that combine individual “world facts” and give you big pictures that are so much more meaningful than their myriad components. Parenthetically, there’s a curious thing about those geography-as-world-tour books. They all seem to start by telling you geography is so much more than facts about the world, and then spend 350 pages telling you facts about the world.
I’m going to assume that you are an average person who is curious about the world but who just happens to have a limited background in geography. And I firmly believe “average” means intelligent, so nothing is out of bounds because of the gray stuff between your ears. Instead, in my view, you are completely capable of digesting the real meat and drink (or tofu and carrot juice, if you prefer) of geography. You may be 14, or 44, or 84. It doesn’t matter. As far as I am concerned, you’re ready for prime-time geography. Please understand I’m not talking wimpy stuff like “What’s the capital of Nevada?” No way. I’m talking big league stuff like how you can have a rainforest on one side of a mountain range and a desert on the other; or how to choose a good location for a shopping mall; or how ocean currents help to determine the geography of climates.
I’m also going to assume that, generally speaking, you know your way around the world. Thus, when you see terms like Pacific Ocean, Nile River, Europe, or Japan, some kind of mental map pops up inside your head and allows you to “see” where they are located. On the other hand, when you meet up with terms like Burkina Faso, Skaggerak, or Myanmar, you may need some outside help. For that reason, it will be helpful to have an atlas handy.
Finally, if this were a beer, then I’m assuming you went to your bookstore to pick up some Geography Lite. That is, you want the real thing, but figure you don’t need all the calories. One of my goals is to make this book a painless — and indeed a pleasurable — experience. A lite-hearted read, if you will, that also communicates some serious geography and leaves you with a well-rounded exposure to the subject. If that sounds about right, then I invite you to keep reading.
This book is divided into four major parts that address broad areas of geography, plus a fifth part with ancillary information. Each of these parts consists of chapters that concentrate on an important aspect of that subject area. Following is the full story.
This section introduces you to the major concepts, modes of thinking, and tools of geography. Sadly, many people think that geography is little more than a category on TV quiz shows. Accordingly, my first task is to set the record straight concerning what geography is and what it is not. Thus, you will encounter examples that highlight the nature of geography and show you how to think like a geographer.
Maps are the most basic tools of geography. If this book didn’t talk about them in some detail, then it couldn’t claim to be a grown-up primer on geography (which it does). Thus, you encounter an overview of latitude and longitude, the basic principles of map-making, and the fundamentals of map reading. In addition to maps, which are about as old as geography itself, modern geographers use some really neat cutting-edge technology that helps them locate and analyze phenomena on Earth’s surface. You’ll meet some of that technology in this section.
This section introduces you to Earth’s physical characteristics and the processes that underlie them. Geography plays out on an Earthly stage of astonishing variety. Landforms, water bodies, soils, vegetation — they’re all here. And above it all is a remarkable atmosphere that gives us air to breathe, rainfall to sustain plant and animal life, and temperature environments that warm us up, chill us out, and do everything else in between.
Therefore, understanding the characteristics and locations of the Earth’s natural features is fundamental to a sound geographic education. But landforms and other aspects of the natural world don’t “just happen.” Everything you see today, everything that existed yesterday, and everything that will characterize Earth in the future are the result of natural processes. Understanding these processes is as fundamental to geography as knowing the landforms they produce; for only by understanding the processes can you really understand the world.
This section introduces you to the basic content and concepts of human geography. Arguably, people are the most important phenomenon that characterizes Earth’s surface, and probably the most complex and diverse as well. Areas of extraordinary population density contrast with regions in which people are few and far between — at least for now. That qualification is appropriate because, thanks to migration and reproductive biology, the distribution of people is forever in a state of flux.
But human geography is not just a numbers game. All humans possess an array of culture traits which, in their depth and breadth, not only differentiate one group of people from the next, but also add substantial variety to the look and feel of the world in which we live. On top of that, people are territorial. They have a propensity to divide and control Earth’s surface, creating countries and other political entities that, by creating nationalities and jurisdictions, further characterize and complicate the picture. In occupying the planet, therefore, people have imparted a rich mosaic of attributes to their Earthly home. Acquiring a basic understanding of them is part and parcel of becoming a geographically informed person.
This section focuses on characteristics and consequences of human use of Earth. As Parts II and III respectively emphasize, natural features (like landforms and climates) characterize our world, and human features do the same. But these sets of characteristics do not exist in isolation from each other. We humans not only occupy the planet — we also put it to use as we construct our homes and settlements, make a living, produce our food, garner resources, and dispose of our refuse.
The Earth, therefore, is a natural entity that we impact and modify. Increas-ingly, therefore, as geographers describe and explain Earth’s character, the story line concerns the role of humans in changing the face of the planet and altering its environmental quality, usually for the worse. Different people impact different regions in different ways. Nevertheless, general principles and concepts have been identified that help us to understand the nature and results of our actions and also hint at strategies to improve our planetary stewardship. You’ll be introduced to them in this section.
You want lists? Well, in the grand finale tradition of For Dummies books, I give you lists. They concern organizations and agencies that can provide you with very useful information and materials and information about careers in geo-graphy. And for a real change, if you feel like forgetting a few things, you can find a list for that, too!
From time to time you will encounter circular, cartoon-like figures in the left-hand margin of the text. The purpose of these icons is to alert you to the presence of something that is comparatively noteworthy amidst the passing prose. That may be something I regard as particularly important, or something you may wish to take your time to think about, or something you may wish to skip. In any event, here are the icons and their meanings.
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You can take that two ways: where to go when you’re done with this page, and where to go when you’re done with this book. Regarding the former, I recommend you read this book from start to finish as you would a novel. To some extent, geographic knowledge is cumulative. That is, there are basic concepts and information that provide a foundation for understanding other concepts and information. Accordingly, the parts and chapters of this book follow a certain logical progression. In short, I do believe the content of this book will make more sense to you if you read this volume from start to finish. However, if you wish, you can dive into chapters at random — each chapter is set up to be self-contained.
And where do you go when you’re done? As I’ve already mentioned, the Part of Tens (Part V) contains references to careers in geography and organizations and web sites that can further your interest in and mastery of the subject. So, if in fact this book whets your appetite for more, then there’s information at the end to help satisfy the hunger.
In this part . . .
Each and every academic discipline has its own particular and peculiar subject matter. Geography is no exception, but my, how things have changed!
For the longest period, geography was concerned primarily with mapping the world and acquiring facts about places. It has since become a much more analytical pursuit. Thus, the time-honored imperative to know where things are located is complemented by an equally strong (if not stronger) desire to know why they occur where they do. Also, geography has become an applied discipline that seeks to identify the best location for a hospital, store, factory, or other facility.
In this part, you will learn about the key concepts and methods of contemporary geography as well as the principal tools and techniques of the trade. Among other things you will see how exciting technologies are giving geographers unprecedented perspectives on where and why.