Geography For Dummies
, by Mitchell, Jerry
- ISBN: 9781119867128 | 1119867126
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 4/5/2022
The whole world in the palm of your hand
Ever wonder how you can have a rainforest on one side of a mountain and a desert on the other? Or zoom around the globe with Google Maps and wonder how everything got to where it is now? The answer is…geography.
In Geography For Dummies, you’ll discover that geography is more than just cool trivia—it explains tons about the world around us. From understanding the basics—like how to read maps and geographic coordinates—to learning about how the continents got to their current positions, you’ll learn fascinating things about the planet’s people, cities, resources, and more.
In this book, you’ll discover:
- How geographers make and use maps to understand and tell useful stories about the earth
- How weather and climate shape the planet, impact the water supply, and change landscapes
- How humans use (and overuse) the planet we live on to our advantage
Geography For Dummies is an incredible exploration of our planet and the people who live on it. This book takes a huge subject and makes it accessible for the rest of us!
Jerry T. Mitchell, PhD, is Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina and an avid world traveler.
Introduction 1
About This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 4
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: Getting Grounded: The Geographic Basics 5
Chapter 1: Geography: The Why of Where and Why You Should Care 7
Geography: Making Sense of it All 8
From ancient roots 8
To modern discipline 9
Exposing Misconceptions: More Than Maps and Trivia 11
The Geographic Advantage 11
What is the capital city of Indonesia? 12
Why is Jakarta the capital of Indonesia? 12
Getting to the Essentials 13
Where things are in the world: The world in spatial terms 14
What locations are like: Places and regions 15
Why things are the way they are: Physical systems 16
Giving that human touch: Human systems 16
Interacting with the world around us: Environment and society 17
Putting geography to use: Uses of geography 18
Chapter 2: Thinking Like a Geographer 19
Changing the Way You Think — Geographically 20
Case Study #1: Where Something is Located 21
A fraction of its former self 22
Where lions hang out 23
What gives with grasslands? 23
Extinction made easy 24
Fewer lions? So what? 25
Summing up 26
Case Study #2: Where Something Should be Located 26
Summing up 27
Looking ahead 28
Chapter 3: Lining Up Locations 29
Welcome to Gridville 29
Feeling Kind of Square 30
Telling Someone Where to Go 31
Relative location 31
Absolute location 32
The best location to use 32
The Global Grid: Hip, Hip, Hipparchus! 32
Avoiding gridlock 33
The naming game 34
Getting Lined Up 36
Latitude 36
Longitude 38
Graticule 39
Minutes and seconds that don’t tick away 40
Chapter 4: Truthiness in Mapping 41
Seeing the Light: Map Projections 42
Realizing Exactly How Flat Maps Lie 44
Singapore, please And step on it! 45
Wading through lies in search of the truth 47
Isn’t there a truthful map anywhere? 48
The one and only honest map: The globe! 49
Honesty is the best policy, except 49
Telling the truth, but telling it skewed 50
Different Strokes for Different Folks: A World of Projections 51
All in the (map) family 52
Five noteworthy liars 53
Mapping a Cartographic Controversy! 57
Chapter 5: Telling a Spatial Story 59
Why We Need Tal(l) Dogs 60
Taking It to Scale 61
Going the distance 61
Comparing Earth at different scales 62
Showing the Ups and Downs: Topography 65
Spot heights 65
Contour lines 66
Shading or Color 66
Using Symbols to Tell the Story 67
Point symbols 68
Line symbols 68
Area symbols 70
New Ways of Seeing: How Technology has Changed How we Make and Use Maps 72
Geographic Information Systems 72
Global Positioning Systems 74
Remote sensing 75
Making Maps Yourself! 77
Part 2: Let’s Get Physical: Land, Water, and Air 79
Chapter 6: Shape-shifting Earth 81
Starting at the Bottom: Inside Earth 82
Moving Continents: Big Pieces of a Big Puzzle 84
Where have you gone, Gondwanaland? 85
Alfred Wegener, mover and shaker 85
Puzzle solved! 86
Getting Down to Theory 86
Making Mountains Out of Molehills 88
Folding the crust 88
Whose “fault” is it? 90
Plate tectonics: A four-letter word! 91
Experiencing Earthquakes: Shake, Rattle and Roll! 92
Splitsville in California 92
People at risk 93
How earthquakes kill and maim 94
A matter of magnitude 96
Subducting Plates: Volcano Makers 98
“The Ring of Fire” 98
Subduction: Another four-letter word? 99
Categorizing Tectonic Processes 102
Chapter 7: A Nip and a Tuck: Giving Earth a Facelift 103
Getting Carried Away 104
Weathering Earth 105
Wasting away 108
Changing the Landscape 109
Staying grounded: Gravity transfer 109
Going with the flow: Water 110
The chill factor: Glaciers 115
Making a deposit: Wind 117
Chapter 8: Making a Splash on Earth 119
Taking the Plunge: Global Water Supply 120
Those ice caps are really cool! 121
Getting out: Oceans, seas, gulfs, and bays 122
Coming inland: Lakes 123
Shaping Our World: Oceans 124
Going where the action is: The continental shelves 124
Claiming ocean ownership 126
Getting a rise out of oceans 128
Getting Fresh with Water 129
The stages of the water cycle 131
Run-off: Going with the flow 132
Infiltration: Out of sight, not out of mind 132
Good to the very last drop 134
Chapter 9: Warming Up and Chilling Out: Why Climates Happen 137
Getting a Grip on Climate 138
Playing the Angles 139
Making hot and cold 139
Making rain and snow 140
Tilt-a-World: The Reasons for the Seasons 141
Special lines of latitude 141
Defining the seasons 142
Special lines of latitude revisited 144
Hot or Cold? Adjust Your Altitude 145
Warming the atmosphere 145
Weighty matter 145
Seeing (and feeling) is believing 145
The lapse rate 146
Windward slope, leeward slope 147
Gaining Heat, Losing Heat 148
Afternoon versus evening 148
Summer versus winter 149
Oh, How the Wind Blows 150
Going with the Flow: Ocean Currents 150
Warm currents, cold currents 151
Going against the norm: El Niño and La Niña 152
Living Under Pressure 154
Pressure belts 155
Monsoons 155
Chapter 10: Connecting Climates and Vegetation 159
Giving Class to Climates 160
Mixing Sun and Rain: Humid Tropical Climates 162
Tropical rainforest 163
Tropical monsoon 165
Savanna (tropical wet and dry) 165
Going to Extremes: Dry Climates 167
Desert 168
Semi-desert (steppe) 169
Enjoying the In-between: Humid Mesothermal Climates 172
Humid subtropical 172
Mediterranean 172
Marine west coast 173
Cooling Off: Humid Microthermal Climates 174
Humid continental 175
Subarctic 175
Dropping Below Freezing: Polar Climates 176
Tundra 176
Ice cap 178
Part 3: Peopling the Planet 179
Chapter 11: Nobody Here But A Few Billion Friends 181
Going by the Numbers 182
Opportunity for livelihood 183
Urban growth 185
Going Ballistic: Population Growth 185
Checking Behind the Curve: Population Change 187
Dealing with births and deaths: Natural increase 187
Increasing for a reason: The demographic transition model 189
Making connections 193
Considering “Overpopulation” 196
Neo-Malthusians 197
Cornucopians 199
Chapter 12: Shift Happens: Migration 203
Populating the Planet 204
Bridging the oceans 204
Voyaging afar 205
Making colonial connections 206
Forcing involuntary migration 207
Choosing to Migrate 207
Coming to America 208
Migrating at home 210
Relocating within America 211
Giving a Good Impression 214
Playing the mental game 214
Getting an image adjustment 216
Putting your best image forward 216
Chapter 13: Culture: The Way We Live 219
Being Different Thousands of Times Over 220
Counting cultural diversity 221
Isolating people 222
Adapting to new surroundings 222
Spreading the Word on Culture 223
Relocating one’s culture 224
Coming down with culture 224
Doing what the big boys do 226
Calling a Halt: Barrier Effects 226
Getting physical 227
Socializing effects 229
Getting Religion: How It Moves and Grows 230
Putting diffusion to work 231
Getting effects into action 232
Creating local character 232
Getting in a Word about Language 234
Diffusing languages 235
Checking the physical effects 236
Playing the landscape naming game 236
Creating a Single Global Culture 237
Promoting cultural divergence 238
Promoting cultural convergence 238
Chapter 14: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors 239
Drawing and Re-Drawing the Boundaries of the World 240
Typecasting Boundary Lines 241
Ethnic boundaries 242
Natural (physical) boundaries 243
Geometric boundaries 244
Living with the Consequences 245
Ethnic intrigues 245
Positional disputes 248
Functional disputes 250
Resource disputes 251
Land-locked states 252
Questions of size and shape 254
Drawing Electoral District Boundaries 256
Gerrymandering: Rigging the outcome 257
Meeting the letter and spirit of the law 259
Part 4: Putting the Planet to Use 261
Chapter 15: Takin’ Care of Business 263
Categorizing Economic Activity 264
Primary activities 264
Secondary activities 265
Tertiary activities 265
Quaternary activities 266
Activity distribution around the world 266
Putting Economic Systems into Place 267
Subsistence economies 267
Commercial economies 268
Understanding Location Factors 269
Proximity to raw material(s) 272
Proximity to market(s) 272
Cost of labor 274
Accessibility 275
Cost of land/rent 279
Taxes 279
Climate 280
Chapter 16: Earth’s Resources: Always Hungry for More 283
Defining Resources and Assessing Their Importance 284
The central role of culture 284
Culture change, resource change 285
Resources and power 286
Resources and wealth 287
Differing Life Spans: Which Resources Are Here Today or Gone Tomorrow 288
Non-renewable resources 289
Renewable resources 294
Perennial resources 295
Trading-off Resources: The Consequences of Resource Use 298
Chapter 17: Downtown to the ‘Burbs: Urban Geography 301
Studying the Urban Scene 302
Getting a Global Perspective 303
Getting Started: Urban Hearths 305
Finding Sites for Cities 306
Confluence 307
Protected harbor 307
Head of navigation 308
Defensive sites 308
Getting Big: Urban Growth 309
Rural-to-urban migration 309
Changing means of transportation 310
Automobile ownership 311
Low-cost fuel 311
Home mortgage deductibility 312
Looking Inside the City 312
The central business district (CBD) 313
Residential areas 314
Leaving Downtown, Living Downtown 317
Moving out of downtown 317
Moving back downtown 319
Facing up to Environmental Issues 320
Chapter 18: Only One Home: Impacts on the Environment 323
Grasping the Basics — Environmentally Speaking 325
Contributing Factors: Pollution on the Move 326
Making an impact 326
Spreading the mess 326
Focusing on food chains 329
Going Global: Environmental Issues Affecting Us All 332
Deforestation 333
Biodiversity loss 333
Soil degradation 333
Ocean acidification 334
Overfishing 335
Acid precipitation 335
Climate change 339
Taking on the Challenges of Tomorrow 342
Part 5: The Part of Tens 343
Chapter 19: Ten Organizations for Geography in Action 345
American Association of Geographers (AAG) 345
American Geographical Society (AGS) 346
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 346
National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) 347
National Geographic Society (NGS) 347
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 348
Population Reference Bureau (PRB) 348
Royal Geographical Society (RGS) 349
United States Census Bureau 349
United States Geological Survey (USGS) 350
Chapter 20: Ten Interesting Career Paths for Geographers 351
Area Specialist 351
Educator 352
Environmental Manager 352
GIS Technician 353
Health Services Planner 353
Location Analyst 353
Market Analyst 354
Remote Sensing Analyst 354
Transportation Planner 355
Urban Planner 355
Chapter 21: Ten Things You Can Forget 357
The Bermuda Triangle 357
Cold Canadian Air 358
“Coming Out of Nowhere” 359
“The Continent” 359
The Democratic Republic of 360
The Flat Earth Society 360
Land of the Midnight Sun 361
“The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain” 361
The Seven Seas 362
Tropical Paradise 362
Chapter 22: Ten Great Places for Online Geography 365
Any County/Local GIS Department 365
Geocaching 366
Geoguessr 366
Geoinquiries 367
Google Earth 367
Google Lit Trips 368
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection 368
World Bank Open Data 369
World Factbook 369
Your State’s Geographic Alliance 369
Index 371
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