[Applause] [Music] hi I'm mr. Russia and welcome to our first lesson in this world geography course in which you and I are going to be discovering the world together in this lesson we're gonna learn what geography is and some of the general concepts which we'll be using throughout the course so what is geography well geography is the study of the distribution that's how things are arranged and the interaction of physical and human features of the earth the word geography comes from two Greek words G and graffia G or geo actually means earth and graffia means to write or to draw or in other words to describe so put together geography literally is the describing of the world and that's what we're gonna be doing in this course so how does this differ from history well put simply historians and geographers look at the world in different ways historians tell the story of the earth and the people in terms of time dates are important to historians to be able to sequence the events to make a sense of the world geographers however tell the story of the earth and his people in terms of space or spatial relationships geographers look at what happens based upon the spatial relationship or how close or how far things are between people and their environment so even though in this course we will be reviewing some of Earth's history we're always going to be looking at the geography and how it has impacted that history now within geography there are two major branches which is physical geography and human geography physical geography looks at the physical characteristics of the earth this includes the creation of mountains volcanoes valleys and other landforms but it also looks at weather in climate which impacts the type of vegetation and animals that found in the world or what we call biomes now human geography looks at the human characteristics of the Earth's people human characteristics include culture religion government economics and much much more essentially human characteristics define everything mankind is and what mankind does now what is really powerful in geography is when geographers look at the interaction between both these physical characteristics and these human characteristics for example geographers look at how rivers mountains and deserts have impacted where people live how that has impacted how they have learned their languages what type of governments they have and even the cultures and the customs they have to account for their surroundings this is what we're going to be spending a lot of our time in these lessons now in order for geographers to study these elements of the world they can use several different tools these can include maps charts data as well as something known as the five themes of geography these five themes location place region movement and human environment interaction describes how geography looks at the world in this lesson they also provide a useful way to introduce some of the basic concepts of geography the first theme is location which ask where is it how do we know where somewhere is on the earth now here geographers can describe location is either an absolute or a relative location an absolute location tells us exactly where something is using coordinates of latitude and longitude now latitude and longitude are imaginary lines ringing across the globe to tell how far either north and south you are or east or west you are on the globe the first set of lines are latitude now the word latitude comes from the Latin word which means breath so latitude runs across the earth remember latitude flat a--to now the most important line of latitude is the equator which runs right through the middle of the earth and divides the earth into a northern hemisphere and a southern hemisphere now if you're north of these the equator you're in the northern hemisphere and if you're south of the equator you're at the southern hemisphere now how far you are from the equator is measured in degrees from the equator which is at 0 degrees and the north and the south poles being at 90 degrees north and 90 degrees south latitude respectfully now if you're at 45 degrees north latitude you're halfway between the equator and the North Pole and if you're 45 degrees south latitude means you're halfway between the equator and the South Pole so if latitude tells us how far north and south you are longitude tells us how far east and west you are of something known as the prime meridian which runs right Greenwich England the Prime Meridian which is at zero degrees longitude now separates the earth into an Eastern and a western hemisphere now want you to dismiss heard by degrees starting at the prime meridian which is remembered as a zero degrees by either going east 180 degrees or a west 180 degrees meaning out of what is known on the other side of the world as the International Dateline the one interesting rule that longitude plays is in time now the time zones of the world are actually based upon longitude with each time zone being about 15 degrees longitude but latitude and longitude are primarily used in coordinates coordinates are kind of like addresses which use latitude which is going to be listed first and then longitude now if the location is in between a line of longitude and latitude that latitude is divided in two minutes and then in two seconds so 29 degrees 30 minutes east longitude is exactly halfway between 29 degrees and 30 degrees latitude and we can further divide minutes into seconds to give a much more accurate location here is an example of a coordinates these tells us that this location is at 30 degrees 39 minutes and 8.2 seconds north of the equator and it is at 96 degrees 20 minutes in 48 and a half seconds west of longitude in other words this is exact coordinates of my classroom at our school so that is an absolute location the other type of location is a relative location which doesn't use coordinates but rather describes a location by where it is in relation to another location for example Mexico is south of Texas New York is on the east coast of the United States and France is about 49 hundred miles from Texas no wrote the location is not exact as an absolute location but then most times it is actually much much easier to be able to describe where another place is to another person now when geography relative location will often use directions such as north south east and west now usually north is at the top of the map South is at the bottom of the map West is to the left of the map and East is to the right of the map now most maps will have R is known as a compass rose which verifies for you which way the map is oriented now the next geography is place place answers a question of what is it like here this is where a geographer starts to look at those physical and those human characteristics now when we talk about the physical characteristics of a place such as its climates whether whether there's mountains their deserts what type of vegetation then we're talking about the theme of geography of place life lies when we discuss who lives there what languages they speak what are the customs what type of the government do they have and other human characteristics we are also using the theme of geography of place then there are regions regions ask how is this area different or similar from another area and there are three types of regions there is a formal functional and a perceptual region a formal region is defined as a connected area that has one or more measurable characteristics for example the Sahara Desert is a formal region because within that desert it shares all the same types of characteristics but a formal region is also defined as the official boundaries that have been drawn country state county city borders are all formal regions now functional regions are those which show how an area is related to a central hub or a focal point now this might seem confusing but here's a way to think of functional regions if I say that the water fountain isn't functioning you know isn't working likewise that if I said or my computer was finally functioning you know now it is working functional means work so a map that shows how things work is a functional region we've seen functional regions all around when you go into AT&T and you see a map that shows where you have AT&T function that is a functional region when you go in you'll see a map that shows how a subway works that too is a functional region and this map showing where you can buy Blue Bell ice cream is a functional region or also what I like to call the region of happiness so if a map is showing trade business of transportation all things at work we're talking about a functional region then there are perceptual regions the term perceptual comes from the word perceive which means to see essentially a perceptual region is a region that is dependent upon how someone sees a location unlike a former region which uses either former borders or characteristics perceptual regions are determined by how a person wants to see a place or what story they want to tell take Texas for example the region that Texas is in depends upon the story that its creator wants to tell for example Texas can be described as being in the American Southwest because of its climate because of the location along the Mexican border and the many immigrants are similar to other states and the American Southwest a historian however who is studying the Civil War would call Texas a southern state because of the Confederacy now leg of an agency that tracks hurricanes will put Texas who was known as the Gulf Coast region to identify those states that would be affected by the hurricane that moves into the Gulf of Mexico and the Department of Agriculture pushed Texas of what is calls the prairie region for its research so what region Texas is in is fully dependent upon how people want to see Texas for their purposes this is a perceptual region then there is movement the theme of movement asks how does goods people and ideas move from one location to another so how people settled areas the world and their Patterson migration is part of the theme of movement geographers will also use spatial relationships to see how religions languages and customs spread around the world which is known as cultural diffusion they will also study how cultures separate from each other which is known as cultural divergence and how cultures come together which is known as cultural convergence and looking at movement geographers will look at how distances affect the human experience for example geographers understand that a larger country such as Russia is harder for a government to control through something what is known as distance decay but there's other several things that define distance first there is what is known as linear distance which is measuring the distance for point A to point B in miles or kilometers next is time distance how long does it take to move from one place to the other why linear distance really doesn't change time distance does change as you have advances in transportation technology such as the automobile and the airplane which has slashed the time distance it takes removing for a moment point to the other then there is something called psychological distance which defines how people think about the distance from one place to another essentially this is based upon how we'll look at both the time in the linear distance and makes decisions upon that psychological distance may ask what do they consider too far to travel now this concept of psychological distance is very important to including to businesses as survey asks Americans how far they would be willing to try through a series of different businesses on average Americans responded they will travel up to 20 minutes to go to a clothes store but they would only go 12 minutes to go to a gym this is an example of psychological distance this leads businesses to make decisions on where to place their stores all based upon the psychological distance that shoppers are willing to travel lasts we have human environment interaction in this theme of geography we ask how it people shaped and have been shaped by their environment how do their people relate to the physical world human environment interaction includes the effects of pollution deforestation and overuse of resources it also cludes how people have made intentional changes to their environment such as building dams irrigation for agriculture and the building of canals to support transportation and studying the theme of human environment interaction how people have adapted their homes grow their clothing and customs because their environment is also examined so these are the five themes of geography but geographers do not only use one theme of geography at a time rather they will use several of these themes if not all of them to be able to study a country or an area of the earth just like we will be using these themes of geography and other tools as we travel around the world in this course I am so excited to be able to share the world with you and I hope you are too so until the next lesson keep on learning [Music] you