Human Geography Vocabulary

Absolute location | Position of an object on the global grid; latitude and longitude. |
Anglocentric | Focused on the English culture. |
Azimuthal Projection | Map that maintains direction but distorts other properties; flat plane constructed map of each hemisphere; directions are accurate and great circle routes apparent. |
Cardinal Direction | North, south, east, and west. |
Cartogram | Map that uses proportionality (i.e., space on the map) to show a particular variable. |
Cartography | Process of mapmaking. |
Chloropleth thematic map | Map that shows a pattern of a variable, such as population density or voting patterns, by using various colors or degrees of shading. |
Cognitive map | Map drawn from memory. |
Conformal (or orthomorphic) projection | Map that maintains shape but distorts other properties. |
Cultural ecology | Study of human-environment interaction. |
Data aggregation | Size of geographic units being represented on a map. |
Distance decay | Pattern in which the interaction between two places declines as the distance between the two places increases. |
Distortion | Necessary error resulting from trying to represent the round, nearly spherical earth on a flat plane or map. |
Dot density map | Thematic map that uses dots to represent the frequency of a variable in a given area. |
Equal-area(or equivalent) projection | Map that maintains area but distorts other properties |
Equidistant projection | Map that maintains distance but distorts other properties |
Formal region | Region composed of areas that have a common (or uniform) cultural or physical feature; sometimes referred to as uniform regions. |
Four main properties of a map | Shape, size (area), distance, and direction. Shape refers to the geometric shapes of the objects on the map. Size (area) refers to the relative amount of space taken up on the map by the landforms or objects on the map. Distance refers to the represented distance between objects on the... [continues]

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