Five Themes of Geography

Mr. Jeremy Rinkel

 The Five Themes of Geography • Used to help understand why and how

things are different in geography

• Are used to help you think like a geographer

Location

• “How do I get There?”• Means knowing where you are• Exact Location: using latitude and longitude

gives you an exact position on the globe– Also know as absolute location

• Relative Location: Finding a place or location by finding out how far and in what direction it is from somewhere else

Absolute Location

• using latitude and longitude gives you an exact position on the globe

X

• Reason for its location : understanding how the geography of an area helped or hurt the development of that area

Place

• “What is it like to live there?”

• Means more than where a place is, but also describes what a place is like.

• Physical Characteristics

• Human Characteristics

• Movie

Physical Characteristics

• Geographers look at the following to understand place:– Landscape– Habitat– Climate – Natural Disasters

Landscape

Habitat

Climate

Natural Disasters

Human Characteristics

• Geographers also look at these areas to understand place:– Religion– Types of houses– Clothing– Traditions– Lifestyles

Religions

Types of Houses

Clothing

Traditions

Lifestyles

Human Environment Interaction

• “How do people relate to the land?”

• Means where ever people have lived they have changed their environment or have been changed by it.

• Adapt to the Environment

• Change the Environment

• Depend on the Enviroment

Adapt to Environment

• Clothing Styles – Summer/ Winter clothes, building houses on hillsides, irrigation of crops

Change the Environment

• Cut down trees and rain forests, use grasslands to graze herds, mine the earth

Depend on the Environment

• Depend on Coal, Iron Ore, good soil to grow crops, water supply, etc. Jobs.

Movement

• “How are people, goods, and ideas moved into and out of an area?”

• Helps geographers understand relationships among places

• Goods: imports/exports buy/sell• People: immigration, naturalization, ancestors• By what means: ideas are transported by people,

TV, Radio, automobile, plane, FAX, internet

Region

• “Geographers invent them.”

• Developed by geographers based on different physical or human features