Geography is more than memorizing names and places. Geographers organize space in much the same way that historians organize time. To help organize space, geographers are concerned with asking three important questions about things in the world: • Where is it? • Why is it there? • What are the consequences of its being there? The five themes of geography help answer these questions: • Location: Where is it located? • Place: What's it like there? • Human/Environment Interaction: What is the relationship between humans and their environment • Movement: How and why are places connected with one another? • Regions: How and why is one area similar to another? No one theme can be understood without the others. The themes are connected with one another, as are all components of our world. No part of our world can be understood in isolation. I. Location: Position on Earth's Surface Absolute and relative location are two ways of describing the positions and distribution of people and places on the earth's surface. Absolute location answers the questions: Where is it? Absolute location is nothing more than a simple dot--often identified as a grid coordinate on the surface of the earth. Latitude and longitude can be used to pinpoint a location. For example, the absolute location of New Orleans, Louisiana, is 30 degrees north, 90 degrees west. Finding absolute location is the starting point for geographic research. Relative location is the relationship of a place to other places. For example, New Orleans is located at the place where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico, which gives it easy access to ocean and river shipping. Your home has a relative location. Where is it located in relation to schools, stores, and convenient transportation? Location is only one piece of the framework of geography, yet it is an important theme because it helps us know and express where things are. Discuss answers to these questions about your location: • What are the latitude and longitude coordinates of your absolute location. • What is your relative location and the relationship of your location to other locations? • How does the importance of your location change over time? II. Place: Physical and Human Characteristics The theme of place addresses this question: What's it like there? This theme considers the characteristics that make one place different from all other places on earth. Geographers describe a place by two kinds of characteristics; physical and human.
The physical characteristics of a place make up its natural environment and are derived
