Geography 111: Human Geography

Geography 111:Geography 111:Human GeographyHuman Geography

Office hours

PROFESSOR ZOLTÁN GROSSMAN258 Phillips Hall 10:00-10:50 MWFTel. 836-4471E-mail: grossmzc@uwec.eduWeb: www.uwec.edu/grossmzc

Geography is not just about...

• Memorizing place names and boundaries. (though you need to learn context through maps)

• Where things and people are located (though you need basic descriptive background)

Geography is about...

• Why things and people are where they are.

• How people, things and places interact with each other.

Fields of Geography

• Physical Geography• Human Geography

• People/environment interaction

Geography crosses thehuman-nature border

Geography comparesdifferent places

Eau Claire-sur-le-ChippewaParis-sur-la-Seine

Geography comparesdifferent scales

Geography studies realityon the ground, over time

Hayward

Geography studies anythingrelated to place

Zoltán

“Zoltan, Hound of Dracula”

Zoltarin “Big”

Zoltan, ImperialCommander of the Space Nerds

Hungarian for “Sultan”(from the Ottoman Turkish

occupation of Hungary, 1526-1686)

Geography breaksdown boundaries

• Can cross nature-human border.

• Can compare different places/regions.

• Can compare different scales (local, national, global)

• Can study reality on the ground, over time.

• Can study anything related to place(s).

Human Geography studies…

• How human beings organize our activity spatially, and interact with our environment.

• How and why places are made and remade, and how our home places shape who we are.

• How different places interact spatially.

What Human Geographers Do

• Human Geography involves the investigation of the relationship between people and place.

• “The Earth as the home of human beings.”• (Yi-Fu Tuan)

• “Writing the earth”: ‘to write” (graphien) the earth (geo)”.

Making Space into Place

Space is abstract,geometric, empty,like an impersonallocation on a grid

Place is constructed byhuman beings, and givenmeaning through social interaction/memories.

What is a Place?

• LOCALE (physical attributes of place)

• LOCATION (relationship to other places)

• SENSE OF PLACE (feelings evoked by place)

Lambeau Field as a place• LOCALE (turf, players, stands, fans)

• LOCATION (part of National Football

League)

• SENSE OF PLACE (Green & gold, Memories

of Lombardi. Starr, etc.)

Gettysburg as a place• LOCALE (grassy hills, forest, cannons,

visitors)

• LOCATION (part of Civil War strategy,

part of National Park Service)

• SENSE OF PLACE (Many soldiers buried, turning

point in war, Lincoln speech)

Earth as a place• LOCALE (physical geography)

• LOCATION (in solar system; Sun effects weather, crops)

• SENSE OF PLACE (mental map)

Why Place Matters• All social activity is embedded in place

• Places therefore provide the settings for people’s daily lives .

• Social interaction in turn shapes the place.

Human Geography Today

• Studying the relationship of place to people as…

– Social beings– Consumers– Producers