So your AP Human Geography Unit 1 exam is coming up and you're sweating like a dog trying to bury a turd on a marble floor. But hey, what if I told you that it's not as complicated as you think and by the end of this video you'll have everything you need to crush that exam? Well, my name is Steve Heimler and if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, let's get to it. So the first thing you need to know is how to understand and interpret geographic data.
The first representation of geographic data you need to know is maps. And oh baby, you need to get cozy and comfortable with maps because maps are one of the most imp- important tools geographers use. The reason they're so important is because one of the central tasks of a geographer is to analyze and interpret spatial patterns.
Say what? Spatial patterns, and here's what that means. Spatial is related to the word space, so spatial patterns describe where things are located on the earth, and that could literally be anything from mountains to highways to people groups to goat yoga studios. The point is, where those things are located in space is a very important consideration for geographers, and maps are one significant tool that shows spatial patterns.
But a very important consideration for you young geographers is getting an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. And baby! You know I got you. Click the link below to have a look at the tastiest AP Human Geography review materials in existence, the AP Hug Heimler Review Guide.
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But back to spatial patterns. Now, when geographers talk about spatial patterns, there are four big ones you need to know. First, absolute and relative distance. Now the absolute distance between two things can be measured in inches or feet or miles or you know, if you're basically any other place besides America, kilometers. And all of that can be depicted on maps, but relative distance is a measure of social, cultural, or political differences or similarities between two locations and that cannot be depicted on maps.
So you don't know. distance between these two neighborhoods is one mile, so we'd say they're pretty close. But this neighborhood is made up of mainly upper middle class folks, while this one is made up of mainly lower class folks, so the relative distance between them is much greater. Now another spatial pattern has to do with absolute and relative direction. Absolute direction indicates north, south, east, and west, but relative direction describes the location of one thing in relation to another.
So I'm filming this north of Atlanta. That is absolute direction. But when I travel to the city, I usually say I'm going down to Atlanta, and that's relative direction.
Okay, now another set of spatial patterns you need to know is clustering or dispersal, which describe how phenomena are spread out across an area. But hold on, what in the fresh heck is phenomena? Well, it's just a fancy word that you're going to hear often in this course, and it means like, you know, just things that exist. Like fart in the wind?
Um, yeah, yeah, that would indeed be a phenomenon. Anyway, back to it. If phenomena are clustered, that means they are close to If they're dispersed, that means there's more space between them. And then the last spatial pattern you need to know is elevation, which measures the height of geographic features relative to sea level, and this is usually represented by an isoline map, and I'll tell you what that is in a moment. Okay, now that you know that, let's take a tour of a couple map features that you need to know.
Every map has a scale, which explains how distance on the map relates to distance in the real world. I mean, a map is always a smaller version of the features that it depicts, and this map scale tells you how much smaller it is. Now sometimes scale is represented by a ratio, like you see here, 1 to 1000, which just means one inch on the map represents 1000 miles in real life.
Other times you'll see scale represented by a. bar, so this length here represents a thousand miles. Okay, now when we talk about a large-scale map, that means we're zoomed in on a particular feature and the details are larger.
But a small-scale map means that we're zoomed out to a national or global level and the details are smaller. That is probably going to be entirely confusing to you. So think of it in terms of an item that you often see on a map, namely a building. So large-scale means large buildings, and then small-scale means small buildings.
And look at that guy. It's just so cute. And then maps also indicate direction, which is usually depicted by a compass rose. Sometimes the compass rose will simply show the four cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.
And then sometimes it will also include intermediate directions like northeast, southeast, et cetera. Okay, now there are two kinds of maps that you need to know. The first are reference maps, and this kind of map displays specific geographic locations, and the key word there is So, for example, a road map shows the locations of roads and highways.
Or a topographical map shows mountains and valleys and depicts changes in elevation. Or a political map shows the boundaries or provinces of states and countries, etc. So think of reference maps kind of like a blueprint for the construction of a building. The blueprint tells the builder that a bathroom goes here and doors go here, but the blueprint says nothing about the kinds of activities that will take place in that building after it is built. For that, you need to know a second kind of map, namely thematic maps.
Now whereas reference maps major in displaying geographic locations, For Haitians, the purpose of a thematic map is to display geographic information, or, you know, themes. In other words, thematic maps take geographic data or phenomena and depict them spatially. If you're about as confused right now as a fart in a fan factory, then let me give you five examples of thematic maps, and I think that's going to clear things up. First is a choropleth map, which visualizes data with different colors.
Maybe you've seen one of these during or after a presidential election, and here's where things get a little spicy. You can see here the map of the 2020 presidential election. That indicates a state that voted for the president. Republican and blue a state that voted Democrat. Okay, now a second kind of thematic map you need to know is a dot distribution map.
This kind of map uses dots to visualize the location of certain data points. In a one-to-one dot distribution map, one dot equals one unit of data. But in a one-to-many dot distribution, map, one dot represents a group. So for example, this map from the 2010 census displays where all Latino and black citizens live in America, and you can see here that one of these dots equals a thousand people.
And then a third kind of thematic map you need to know is a graduated symbol map. On this kind of map, you'll see symbols that are, you know, graduated, meaning that they are bigger or smaller in proportion to the data that they represent. For example, a map showing population might use small circles for small populations and large circles for large populations.
And then the fourth kind of thematic map to know is the isoline map, which uses lines to depict data. Lines that are closer together indicate a rapid change in data, while lines further apart indicate smaller changes in data. The most common example of an isoline map is a topographic map, which shows changes in elevation.
If you look here, the lines are close together, which means the elevation is rising sharply, but here the lines are further apart, which means that elevation is only gradually increasing. And the fifth kind of map to know is a cartogram, which distorts the size of geographic shapes to display differences in data. So for example, this population cartogram makes India way bigger than Russia. Which is kind of weird, because by land mass, Russia is about three metric buttloads bigger than India.
But this cartogram distorts the land masses because it's depicting population, of which India's is about ten times as large as Russia's. And fun fact is, as of this recording, India now has the world's largest population, just beating out China, so yeah, that's exciting. Okay, now. Here's the thing, every map that exists is distorted in some way, and there is no way around that.
The Earth, in case you didn't know, is a sphere. It's like, you know, three-dimensional. So that means any attempt to represent three dimensions on a flat, two-dimensional map will necessarily have some wonky outcome.
And the decision over which wonky outcomes are acceptable is always made according to the purpose of the map. So over the years, geographers have tried different ways to represent the world, and each of them involves a trade-off for what will be distorted and what will remain accurate. And I want to introduce you to four of these. map projections.
The first and most famous is the Mercator projection. It's a projection whose latitude and longitude lines meet at right angles and thus represent true direction. It was created during the European Age of Exploration because it was useful for navigation.
But the problem here is that the further north and south you get from the equator, the more distorted the land masses become. And you know, this projection has been criticized for being too Eurocentric, which means it makes Europe look way grander than it is in real life. Okay, the second projection to note is the Peters projection, which challenges the Eurocentric Mercator projection by depicting the continents according to the true size of their land masses.
But the problem here is that while the size of the land masses are accurate, the shapes get weird, you know, in a hurry. Okay, third is the Polar projection, which views the world from the North or South Pole. In this projection, directions are true, but the distortion occurs here at the edges.
And then fourth is the Robinson projection, which is basically a compromise between Peters and Mercator, which distributes all kinds of distortion to all parts of the map equally. So again, remember, every kind of map will have some kind of distortion, and the question is where is it going to look right and where is it going to look wonky? And that decision is based on the purpose of the map.
Okay, now in order for any kind of phenomenon to show up on a map, geographic data needs to be gathered. So I reckon we ought to talk about what kind of data is gathered, who gathers that data, and how they gather. First, there are two kinds of data that can be gathered. First is quantitative data, which is numbers-based, you know, the counting kind of data.
There are a hundred houses on this street, eight million people live here, etc. The second is qualitative data, which is more descriptive and language-based. For example, this community feels unsatisfied with traffic in their area.
So quantitative, more thinky-thinky, qualitative, more feely-feely. Okay, now that you know that, let's talk about who gathers geographic data. Well, first, individuals can gather it, and these individuals could include researchers or community advocates. Second, organizations can gather data. For example, every 10 years, the U.S.
Census Bureau sends out thousands of data collectors across the United States to collect data on who lives where, what religion they practice, how young or old they are, etc. So that's easy enough to understand, but now let's consider how these individuals and organizations gather geographical data, and for that there are two categories. First, data can be gathered using various geospatial technologies. These technologies include basically anything that uses hardware or software to examine and measure geographical features on the Earth.
For example, GPS, or Global Positioning System. And you know about GPS, right? You know, you want to go to the Renaissance Festival, so you get dressed up like a dirty.
peasant and then what do you do? You get on your phone, you type in the address to Google Maps or Apple Maps or whatever, and then you get a route and then go crush a turkey leg the size of your face. And to make that tasty magic work, the US Air Force maintains 24 satellites that orbit the Earth which communicate with devices on Earth to connect an absolute location, which is, you know, where you currently are, to another destination, which is where you want to go. And then another geospatial technology is known as GIS or geographic information system.
This is a software that can manipulate geospatial data that can be used for research or problem solving. But careful, don't get GIS confused with GPS. GPS is for finding locations, but GIS is for finding answers to research-based problems like figuring out the best location to build a new parking lot or new stores or stanky waste management facilities.
And yet another geospatial technology you need to know is what's called Remote sensing. This method of data collection gathers information about geographic locations through satellite imagery which can help visualize population patterns and other geospatial information. Like look at this magnificent image of all the electric lights lit up at night. That was done through remote sensing. But this can also be done through aerial photography for areas that require more detail, like major cities.
So those technologies are incredibly useful for gathering geographic data. But the second way data can be gathered is from written accounts, for example, field observations. This is when a researcher or a geographer physically visits a location and makes written observations about what they see. And these observations can be recorded in a number of different ways. different forms, like maybe they write an account or take photographs or interview residents of that location to gather information through interviews or questionnaires.
Or another example, geographic data can be gathered through media reports or travel narratives. The media often show up to locations to tell stories which include details of the people living there and the location in which they live. Additionally, many people write and publish travel narratives which detail their interaction with cultures and places. Like for example, ever heard of Lewis and Clark?
Yeah, those guys explored all this land known as the Louisiana Purchase in the early 19th century and made all kinds of valuable notes in their journal. journals which helped policymakers in the East understand what was there. And both of these sources of data can be exceedingly helpful for geography.
But come on, who really cares about all this gathered data? Well, maybe not you, but some people do care, and they don't just collect all this data for funsies. They collect it because of data drives decision making.
So who is making decisions and how does geographic data help them make those decisions? Well, I'll start with the one you already know. Average people like you and me use geographic data to make decisions. So maybe it's for travel, like you want to take a vacation to Disney World, but you don't want to stay on Disney property. So you pull up Airbnb and find a rental house close to the park.
And then on the drive down there, you get a little hungry. So you decide you want to get a burrito large enough to feed three full grown horses. So you get out Google Maps and you look up the nearest Chipotle.
So without all that geographic data, how else are you going to eat that burrito and spend most of your time at Disney World on the toilet? Not gonna happen. But also, businesses and organizations use geographic data to make decisions as well. Maybe Chick-fil-A wants to open a new restaurant, so they'll look at a population density map and census data indicating socioeconomic status to see where most people live.
Or another example, many businesses used COVID outbreak maps during the pandemic so that they could determine when it was safe to reopen their stores. But maybe the most significant entity to use geographic data to make decisions is big daddy government. So every 10 years here in the US, the federal government collects metric buttloads of census data.
They want to find out where people live, what race they are, what gender, how much they make, etc. And the data they gather has significant decision-making implications. And depending on where people live, it affects how many representatives are apportioned to that state in the House of Representatives. And it can also have budgetary effects on decision making as well.
If people migrate from one region to another, as hundreds of thousands did after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, then the region that they're leaving may see a decrease in funding for schools and other government-sponsored programs. But census data can also help state and local governments make decisions about urban planning. And speaking of big-daddy government, they also use satellite imagery to make decisions as well. For example, federal and state governments and agencies use satellite images to track wildfires to make decisions about when certain populations need to evacuate and develop strategies for fighting those fires. Alright, I know this is a lot to take in, so if you need to pause the video right here and go have a proper cry, I ain't gonna judge you.
But when you're done, let's keep moving on. Okay, now we need to go one click deeper and describe the six major geographic concepts that we can use to think about spatial relationships. In other words, we're going to consider the... tools that help us think geographically.
First is absolute and relative location. And remember earlier when we talked about absolute and relative direction and distance? Very similar idea here, but not the same.
Absolute location refers to the precise geographical coordinates of a particular place on the Earth's surface. So, in order to understand absolute location, you need to understand latitude and longitude. Together, these are lines that form a kind of grid that overlays the entire world. world and they make finding exact locations, or absolute locations, possible.
Latitude refers to the lines that run horizontally and measure locations from north to south. They run parallel to the equator, which is why sometimes you'll hear them called parallels. Longitude refers to the lines that run vertically and measure locations from east to west.
They run parallel to the prime meridian, which is a line that passes through Greenwich, England. So using these lines of latitude and longitude, we can determine the absolute location of any place on Earth. For example, in terms of latitude and longitude, the absolute location of Disney World is this mess of numbers right here.
On the other hand, relative location means to describe one place in reference to another, and it is usually measured in distance or time. So if my kids ask me how far away Disney World is and I say, you know, well it's 28.3772 degrees north and 81.5707 degrees west, they're gonna look at me like I've been sipping on grandpappy's old cough medicine. No, what they want to know is that it is eight hours from our house if we drive.
Or think of a time that you used Google Maps. It gives you a route, but then it asks you if you want to drive or walk or take public transportation and the time required will change based on what you choose. So in that example, the absolute location hasn't changed, but the relative location Okay, second, space and place. Space refers to the physical characteristics of a location and can be measured mathematically. So the distance between this city and this city is 50 miles.
Or kilometers. Got it. Or you know, the area of this town is 30 square miles or you know, whatever. But place refers to the meaning people attribute to the locations in which they live.
And this really can't be measured mathematically. So the lot on which my house sits is about... One acre. Like, that is space.
But the way that we have shaped our indoor and outdoor space, you know, with a trampoline and a fire pit, and the memories that we have shared here make this into a place. Okay, now the third geographic concept to know is flows, which describe patterns of spatial interaction between different locations. For example, roads facilitate movement between locations. So if a place has many tracks of connection, then the spatial interaction between various places will be greater, and if it has fewer, then the interaction will be less. Flow then refers not to the fact of connection, but the patterns which characterize those connections.
So roads indicate spatial interaction, but the way people drive on those roads and for what purpose, that indicates flow. Fourth, you need to understand the concept of distance decay. The principle here is that the further apart two things are, the less they will be connected.
So the greater the distance, the more the connection falls apart or decays. Think of it this way. In my house, my wifi signal has three bars, but if I stand outside away from my house, the signal begins to weaken.
So the distance decays or weakens the signal. Now the same is true of populations in different locations. The further apart they are, the less connected or related they will be and vice versa.
You smell what I'm stepping in? Okay, now fifth you need to know about time-space compression, which refers to the decreased distance between places measured by the time or cost it takes to travel between them. For example, in the 20th and 21st centuries, the world has become increasingly globalized, which means that places from all over are becoming increasingly connected economically and socially and politically.
It used to be back in the day that traveling across the Atlantic Ocean boat took at best two months. But now we get an airplane to make the trip in a few hours. So in that way, the time that it takes for people to travel between those two places to interact has decreased significantly, but the physical distance remains the same.
Time, space, compressed. And finally, you need to understand the geographic concept of patterns. And oh baby, this is the concept that gets geography nerds whipped up into a dizzy. So one of the main tasks of geographers is to try to describe geographic patterns, which means that they try to make sense out of how phenomena are arranged on the landscape. And there are three main types of patterns that you should know.
A random pattern means there is no order whatsoever, like looking at who has Comcast vs. AT&T internet service. A linear pattern indicates that the object under study is arranged in a straight line, such as neighborhoods along a major road. And in a dispersed pattern, the phenomena are scattered throughout a large space, like farms in a rural area.
Okay, now I've just flooded your brain folds with all kinds of terms and definitions. So how about we take a break for a minute and try to understand how how geographers understand the world. Now at the very center of the discipline of human geography is the study of how humans interact with their environment, which is called the human-environmental interaction.
And look, there are a lot of ways geographers study human interaction with their environment, but there are three major ones you need to know. First, geographers study humans'use of natural resources. Now to be fair, the Earth is made up of a lot of materials that are useless for humans. But there are other materials that humans have found useful for generating prog— There are so many prodigious amounts of boom boom, and these are what we refer to when we talk about natural resources. So among these useful natural resources, there are renewable resources, which can be used in unlimited measure.
For example, the sun. With a solar panel, the sun's energy can be used without limit to power a house. Or another renewable resource, SAS from Heimlich.
No matter how many videos you watch, the SAS is available in unlimited measure. But don't put that on your test. Like, use the sun example.
That'll earn you some points. But there are also non-renewable resources, which are only available in limited measure, like for example, oil. Those are gone. They're gone.
Okay, now the second focus of geographers in their study of human environmental interaction action is sustainability. And this just means they study how humans use those non-renewable resources and then develop recommendations and policies for preserving them for future use. Additionally, sustainability is concerned with pollution and the environmental impact of how humans use resources, and geographers make recommendations for how to minimize that impact. For example, one main concern right now is the various effects of climate change on the Earth. So as greenhouse gases are released into the environment as a result of burning fossil fuels, the planet is warming.
And this can have disastrous consequences like polar ice caps melting and sea- levels rising and then you're just living in the day after tomorrow. Which is a movie you haven't seen because it was released in 2004 and you weren't even born yet and I'm a 43 year old bald man. So, whatever.
Anyway, the third focus of human-environmental interaction is land use. And that's exactly what it sounds like. Land use describes how human beings use and modify the land on which they live.
Geographers study how humans use land and what impact that makes on the environment in which they live. And so everything on a piece of land that humans have built, from roads to apartment buildings to stores to KFC slash Taco Bell combo restaurants, are part of what geographers refer to as the built environment. And every culture's built environment will look different.
For example, built environments in Venice, Italy look a lot different than built environments in Moscow, Russia because people are different and they value different things. Regardless, the difference in built landscapes is what geographers refer to as the cultural landscape of a place. It's how the built environment reflects the values and culture of the people who built it.
So what does it say about the values of my neighborhood that we have no less than 4 KFC Taco Bell combo restaurants within a 10 minute drive? You decide. Okay, now those are the main concepts that geographers use to study human interaction with their environment. But they have also established two frameworks of thought, which is to say theories, that help them get thinky-thinky about those interactions. First is Environmental determinism, which was a theory that flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
It basically said that the physical environment determined how a people's culture developed. In other words, environment determines culture. Okay, who cares? Well, during the age of European imperialism, in which European powers were set up to rule setting up their empires all over the dang world, this was the dominant theory of human environmental interaction. And this way of thinking helped Europeans justify to themselves that colonizing lands in tropical regions was just fine, because if people lived in a tropical region, then that meant that they were lazy because they didn't have to live in a tropical region.
didn't have to work very hard for their food. So based on that reasoning, Europeans thought it was a good idea to go ahead and take them over and bring to them the perceived blessings of Western culture. Now, not surprisingly, this way of thinking has generally fallen out of vogue these days, and the theory that has replaced it is known as POSSIBILISM, and this is kind of the opposite of determinism.
So whereas environmental determinism taught that environments shape culture completely, POSSIBILISM argued that humans are the driving force in shaping their own culture, and that whatever environment people find themselves in offers many different possibilities for developing a culture. And those possibilities change. with the level of technological advancement that is present in a culture. So for those cultures with access to many technologies, their environment plays less of a role in how their culture is formed.
Alright, you still with me? Alright, last section, let's go. Now, in order to properly analyze geographic data, geographers make use of different scales of analysis. Now, if you have no idea what that means, let me explain it up real nice for you.
Analysis means thinking about data and coming to conclusions about it. Scale indicates how large or small that dataset is. So then, put both of those together.
When we're talking about scales of analysis, that means that we're drawing conclusions based on different sizes of datasets. And there are four basic scales of analysis that you need to cram into your brain folds. Global, regional, national, and local.
And each of these different scales is helpful in answering different kinds of questions. And we'll start with the biggest scale and work our way down to the smallest. So at a global scale, we're analyzing geographic data at the...
you know, global level. Like, what does this phenomenon look like across the entire honking earth? In the last century, a global scale of analysis has become increasingly important because of the increasing effects of globalization.
More and more, what one part of the world does affects what another part of the world does. For example, global scale is important for studying the effects of pollution. While one part of the world may create more pollution than another, national borders don't prevent that stanky waste from entering other places. And then there's the regional scale of analysis. This scale studies large regions like Eurasia or North America, for example.
And really the point of the regional scale is to draw— draw comparisons between two or more regions. For example, a geographer might want to study life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa and then compare it with life expectancy in North America. And that could be helpful data for governments making decisions about healthcare or foreign policy. Now we'll talk way more about regions in a second, so, you know, get excited. But for now, let's keep going on scales.
So now we get a little tighter and we get the national scale of analysis, which studies phenomena in a particular country. For example, geographers might want to compare median household income in Germany with the median household income in the Czech Republic and then draw some potential conclusions about why they are different. And then the smallest scale is the local scale of analysis, which studies phenomena at the state level or the city level or even down to a particular neighborhood. At this level, a geographer might want to study why one neighborhood has a high graduation rate while another one has a low graduation rate.
Now there are two very important. things to remember about these varying scales of analysis. First, the further you zoom in, the larger the scale. I know that sounds confusing because zooming out seems like it would be big, and then zooming in seems like it would be small.
But it's the opposite. And do you know why? Because AP Human Geography hates you. But I don't hate you.
I think you're pretty great. So, just remember that the further you zoom in, the larger the scale, and the further you zoom out, the smaller the scale. So a global map will be an example of a small-scale map, while a city map will be an example of a large-scale map. The further you zoom out, the less detail. The further you zoom in, the more detail.
Snip snap, that's that, as nobody says. Okay, now the second thing to remember about varying scales of analysis is that changing the scale of analysis reveals different variations in patterns and processes. Okay, now let's turn the corner and talk more about regions.
I told you I would, and I am not a man who breaks his promises. So the question is, how do geographers decide what is a region and what is not. So on the most basic level, a region is some geographical unit which shares some unifying principle. And that unifying principle can be cultural, like a shared language, or economic, like a treaty that binds states together into an economic unit, or a pattern or activity like farming or dang near anything else that helps bind people together.
And wouldn't you know it, there are three types of geographical regions that you have to know. First is a formal region, and you might hear this called a uniform region or a homogenous region. And don't get confused, those are all the same thing.
What makes a region formal is that it is linked by common traits like language, culture, language or religion or economic prosperity. So a geographer can define a region of Arabic-speaking people, like that's one trait that they share. But not all Arabic-speaking people are the same. So a region can be further defined by Arabic-speaking people that practice Islam. So here's what you need to remember here.
It's the geographer that defines the region based on the shared traits that they want to analyze. Okay, now then there's a functional region, which you might hear called a nodal region. So many names for the same thing.
Remember, AP Human Geography hates you. Can't do anything about that. Now a functional region is organized not based on shared traits, but on shared function, and here's how that works.
One entity serves as the node or the center point of the region, and this center point defines the activity in the rest of the region. So maybe a simple way to think about this would be to think about a pizza delivery restaurant. The restaurant is the node and there are boundaries that define where they will deliver and where they will not.
So that creates a kind of functional region for pizza delivery. But a more realistic example of a functional region would be created by a city. The downtown area acts as the node and it is surrounded by many miles of suburbs.
The city is where most of the- the work takes place and people who live in the suburbs drive downtown to work. So the city defines this whole region based on a shared function, in this case, economic activity. Now, it's important to note that formal and functional regions can overlap, but often don't take up the same space. For example, Iraq is a functional region with the capital city Baghdad serving as the node.
But Iraq is also made up of three distinct formal regions which have distinct cultures and languages and religious expressions. One region is home to people of Arab descent who practice Sunni Islam. Another region is home to people of Arab descent who practice Shia Islam. And yet another region is home to people of Kurdish descent who practice Sunni Islam. And these religious and cultural divisions have led to multiple civil wars between these groups.
So the point is, yes, these regions can overlap. But remember, it's geographers who are defining these regions so that they can He can answer whatever. questions are under their consideration.
And the third type of region is known as a perceptual region, also known as a vernacular region. These are regions defined by people's shared beliefs and feelings about themselves. For example, the American South is a perceptual region. Traditionally, Southerners think of themselves as hospitable, and they talk slowly, with a drawl. They are typically more religious, and many Southerners hold similar values.
But the borders of perceptual regions are vague. Like where does the South end? Is it here?
Or here? Or here? And that's the point.
The South is a concept that exists mainly in the minds of Southerners, and therefore there is no border. border or, you know, the border is kind of fuzzy. However, borders on formal and functional regions are usually way more distinct.
But even with formal and functional regions, borders can be transitional, which means that there isn't a hard line where one region stops and the other starts. And those boundaries are often the subject of disputes, and when they are, they are known as contested boundaries. And a good example of contested boundaries is the region of Kashmir at the intersection of Pakistan, India, and China.
When the British government formally withdrew from this region at the end of their colonial dominance, chaos erupted. Pakistan was created by partition as a home to the Muslims. Muslims, while mainly Hindus remained in India.
But the borders of Kashmir are contested by each of these countries, and the result has been bloody conflict for nearly 80 years. And that's it, so click here to keep studying for AP Human Geography. And click here to grab my AP Hug Heimler Review Guide, which has everything you need to get an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. And I'll catch you on the flip-flop. Heimler out.