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Jerry T. Mitchell. Geography For Dummies
Geography For Dummies® To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Geography For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box. Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Illustrations
Guide
Pages
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Getting Grounded: The Geographic Basics
Geography: The Why of Where and Why You Should Care
Geography: Making Sense of it All
From ancient roots …
Disputed paternity
Links to exploration
… To modern discipline
MEASURING THE EARTH
Exposing Misconceptions: More Than Maps and Trivia
The Geographic Advantage
What is the capital city of Indonesia?
Why is Jakarta the capital of Indonesia?
Getting to the Essentials
Where things are in the world: The world in spatial terms
What locations are like: Places and regions
Place: What a location looks like
Region: A bunch of locations with something in common
Why things are the way they are: Physical systems
Giving that human touch: Human systems
Interacting with the world around us: Environment and society
Putting geography to use: Uses of geography
Thinking Like a Geographer
Changing the Way You Think — Geographically
Case Study #1: Where Something is Located
A fraction of its former self
Where lions hang out
What gives with grasslands?
Extinction made easy
ANIMAL GEOGRAPHY, HOLLYWOOD STYLE
Fewer lions? So what?
Summing up
Case Study #2: Where Something Should be Located
Summing up
Looking ahead
Lining Up Locations
Welcome to Gridville
Feeling Kind of Square
Telling Someone Where to Go
Relative location
Absolute location
The best location to use
The Global Grid: Hip, Hip, Hipparchus!
Avoiding gridlock
The naming game
The equator
The prime meridian
Getting Lined Up
Latitude
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS MAP?
Longitude
Graticule
Minutes and seconds that don’t tick away
Truthiness in Mapping
EARTH’S SHAPE: SPHERE-LIKE, NOT SPHERICAL
Seeing the Light: Map Projections
Realizing Exactly How Flat Maps Lie
Singapore, please. And step on it!
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: PUTTING YOUR BEST PROJECTION FORWARD
Wading through lies in search of the truth
Distance
Direction
Shape
Area
Isn’t there a truthful map anywhere?
The one and only honest map: The globe!
Honesty is the best policy, except …
Limited field of view
High cost
Lack of detail
Inefficient data storage
Telling the truth, but telling it skewed
Different Strokes for Different Folks: A World of Projections
All in the (map) family
Five noteworthy liars
The Mercator projection
WHY IS AN ATLAS CALLED AN ATLAS?
The Goode’s Interrupted Homolosine projection
The Robinson projection
The Lambert Conformal Conic projection
The Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection
Mapping a Cartographic Controversy!
Telling a Spatial Story
Why We Need Tal(l) Dogs
Taking It to Scale
Going the distance
Scale bar
Verbal scale
Representative fraction (RF)
Comparing Earth at different scales
WHENCE COMES THE MILE?
Showing the Ups and Downs: Topography
Spot heights
Contour lines
Shading or Color
DISTORTION FOR A PURPOSE
Using Symbols to Tell the Story
Point symbols
Line symbols
Area symbols
New Ways of Seeing: How Technology has Changed How we Make and Use Maps
Geographic Information Systems
Global Positioning Systems
Remote sensing
Aerial photography
Non-photographic imagery
Making Maps Yourself!
Let’s Get Physical: Land, Water, and Air
Shape-shifting Earth
Starting at the Bottom: Inside Earth
HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT’S DOWN THERE?
Moving Continents: Big Pieces of a Big Puzzle
Where have you gone, Gondwanaland?
Alfred Wegener, mover and shaker
Puzzle solved!
Getting Down to Theory
Making Mountains Out of Molehills
Folding the crust
Former grandeur
Making resources accessible
Whose “fault” is it?
Plate tectonics: A four-letter word!
Experiencing Earthquakes: Shake, Rattle and Roll!
Splitsville in California
THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKE(S)
People at risk
How earthquakes kill and maim
A matter of wealth and culture
Tsunamis
A matter of magnitude
The Richter Scale (maybe?)
The Mercalli Scale
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: COPING WITH TSUNAMIS
Subducting Plates: Volcano Makers
“The Ring of Fire”
Subduction: Another four-letter word?
The big blast
THE HAWAIIAN “HOT SPOT”
Making an ash of itself
Lahars
A MOUNTAIN BLOWS ITS TOP
Categorizing Tectonic Processes
A Nip and a Tuck: Giving Earth a Facelift
Getting Carried Away
Weathering Earth
Mechanical weathering
Chemical weathering
GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY: SOIL
Wasting away
Changing the Landscape
Staying grounded: Gravity transfer
Going with the flow: Water
Rivers and streams
THE FLOODPLAIN: LAND OF PROMISE AND PITFALLS
Waves and currents
ERODING CLIFFS
ERODING BEACHES
COASTAL DEPOSITION
The chill factor: Glaciers
Mountain glaciers
Continental glaciers
Making a deposit: Wind
Making a Splash on Earth
Taking the Plunge: Global Water Supply
WHERE DID ALL THAT WATER COME FROM?
Those ice caps are really cool!
Getting out: Oceans, seas, gulfs, and bays
WHY ARE THE OCEANS SALTY?
Coming inland: Lakes
Shaping Our World: Oceans
Going where the action is: The continental shelves
Something very fishy going on
Fuel for thought
Claiming ocean ownership
Getting a rise out of oceans
Getting Fresh with Water
The stages of the water cycle
Run-off: Going with the flow
Infiltration: Out of sight, not out of mind
Contamination
Depletion
Good to the very last drop
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: DRIP IRRIGATION AND CLOUD CATCHING
Warming Up and Chilling Out: Why Climates Happen
Getting a Grip on Climate
Playing the Angles
Making hot and cold
Making rain and snow
Tilt-a-World: The Reasons for the Seasons
Special lines of latitude
Defining the seasons
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Special lines of latitude revisited
Hot or Cold? Adjust Your Altitude
Warming the atmosphere
Weighty matter
Seeing (and feeling) is believing
The lapse rate
Windward slope, leeward slope
Gaining Heat, Losing Heat
Afternoon versus evening
Summer versus winter
Oh, How the Wind Blows
Going with the Flow: Ocean Currents
Warm currents, cold currents
Going against the norm: El Niño and La Niña
COASTAL DESERTS
Living Under Pressure
Pressure belts
Monsoons
THE WETTEST PLACE ON EARTH?
Connecting Climates and Vegetation
Giving Class to Climates
Mixing Sun and Rain: Humid Tropical Climates
Tropical rainforest
Incredible forests!
Endangered forests
Poor soils
Shifting cultivation
Tropical monsoon
Savanna (tropical wet and dry)
MALARIA: A CASE STUDY IN CLIMATE AND DISEASE
Going to Extremes: Dry Climates
Desert
HOT TIMES ON PLANET EARTH
Semi-desert (steppe)
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: DROUGHT MITIGATION
Enjoying the In-between: Humid Mesothermal Climates
Humid subtropical
Mediterranean
Marine west coast
Cooling Off: Humid Microthermal Climates
Humid continental
Subarctic
VERTICAL ZONATION AND “HIGHLANDS CLIMATE”
Dropping Below Freezing: Polar Climates
Tundra
KEEPING PERMAFROST FROZEN
Ice cap
Peopling the Planet
Nobody Here But A Few Billion Friends
Going by the Numbers
Opportunity for livelihood
DISPERSION VERSUS CLUSTERING
Urban growth
Going Ballistic: Population Growth
OK, EVERYBODY INTO RHODE ISLAND!
Checking Behind the Curve: Population Change
Dealing with births and deaths: Natural increase
ON THE DOUBLE!
Rapid growth, poor country
Slow growth, affluent country (with some notable exceptions)
Increasing for a reason: The demographic transition model
Stage 1: High stationary
Stage 2: Early expanding
Stage 3: Late expanding
Stage 4: Low stationary
Making connections
Wealth (Gross National Income [GNI] per capita)
Percent of population ages 0–14
Infant mortality
POPULATION PYRAMIDS
Considering “Overpopulation”
Neo-Malthusians
REGARDING OVERPOPULATION AND CARRYING CAPACITY
Cornucopians
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: CENSUS-TAKING FROM ABOVE
Shift Happens: Migration
Populating the Planet
Bridging the oceans
Voyaging afar
Making colonial connections
Forcing involuntary migration
Choosing to Migrate
Coming to America
Migrating at home
Relocating within America
“THE BRAIN DRAIN”
Giving a Good Impression
Playing the mental game
Getting an image adjustment
Putting your best image forward
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: MARKETING PUERTO RICO
Culture: The Way We Live
Being Different Thousands of Times Over
Counting cultural diversity
Isolating people
Adapting to new surroundings
Spreading the Word on Culture
Relocating one’s culture
Coming down with culture
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: LOOKING SWISS
Doing what the big boys do
Calling a Halt: Barrier Effects
Getting physical
Oceans
Forests
Mountains
Deserts
Tundra
Socializing effects
THE GEOGRAPHY OF GULLAH
Language
Religion
Race and ethnicity
Historic events
Getting Religion: How It Moves and Grows
Putting diffusion to work
Getting effects into action
Creating local character
Places of worship
Sacred sites
Friction and flash points
Forbidden and favored foodstuffs
Getting in a Word about Language
Diffusing languages
Checking the physical effects
Environmental terminology
Linguistic refuges
Playing the landscape naming game
Creating a Single Global Culture
Promoting cultural divergence
Promoting cultural convergence
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Drawing and Re-Drawing the Boundaries of the World
Typecasting Boundary Lines
Ethnic boundaries
Natural (physical) boundaries
Geometric boundaries
Living with the Consequences
Ethnic intrigues
Multi-nation states
Multi-state nations
State-less nations
Positional disputes
Poor definition
Invisibility
“Acts of God”
Functional disputes
United States–Mexico
United States–Canada
Resource disputes
The Rumaila Oil Field
The Georges Bank
Land-locked states
Inhibited access to foreign markets
Treading softly in foreign relations
Increasing the cost of trade
Questions of size and shape
Compact states
Fragmented states
Elongated states
Prorupted states
Perforated states
Drawing Electoral District Boundaries
Gerrymandering: Rigging the outcome
“Diluting” a voting bloc
“Packing” a voting bloc
Meeting the letter and spirit of the law
Putting the Planet to Use
Takin’ Care of Business
Categorizing Economic Activity
Primary activities
Secondary activities
Tertiary activities
Quaternary activities
Activity distribution around the world
Putting Economic Systems into Place
Subsistence economies
Hunters and gatherers
Nomadic herders
Shifting cultivation
Intensive subsistence agriculture
Commercial economies
BEING COMPLEMENTARY
Understanding Location Factors
ATLANTIC CITY AS INTERVENING OPPORTUNITY?
Proximity to raw material(s)
Proximity to market(s)
Cost of labor
My smart phone
MAQUILADORAS
Strum roll, please
Accessibility
Hub-and-spokes networks
Being in just the right place
Containerization
Cost of land/rent
Taxes
Local variation
Enterprise zones
Climate
Textile manufacturing
A matter of amenity
Earth’s Resources: Always Hungry for More
Defining Resources and Assessing Their Importance
The central role of culture
Culture change, resource change
Resources and power
Resources and wealth
Differing Life Spans: Which Resources Are Here Today or Gone Tomorrow
Non-renewable resources
Petroleum
Coal
GRADES OF COAL
Natural gas
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: THE NUCLEAR DILEMMA
Mineral resources
Renewable resources
Perennial resources
Solar energy
Wind energy
Geothermal energy
Hydroelectric power
Trading-off Resources: The Consequences of Resource Use
Downtown to the ‘Burbs: Urban Geography
Studying the Urban Scene
WHAT DOES “URBAN” MEAN?
Getting a Global Perspective
Getting Started: Urban Hearths
Finding Sites for Cities
Confluence
Protected harbor
Head of navigation
Defensive sites
Getting Big: Urban Growth
Rural-to-urban migration
Mechanization of agriculture and farm consolidation
Changing economy
Changing means of transportation
Pre-mechanization
Electric trolleys
Commuter railways
Pre-freeway
Freeway
Automobile ownership
Low-cost fuel
Home mortgage deductibility
Looking Inside the City
The central business district (CBD)
Competitive bidding and the rent gradient
Tall buildings
Residential areas
Rich folks-poor folks, inner city-suburbs
Ethnic neighborhoods
Ghettoes
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: LESSONS FROM BHOPAL?
Leaving Downtown, Living Downtown
Moving out of downtown
Suburban shopping malls
Office parks
Edge cities
Jurisdictional spillover
Moving back downtown
Causes
Characteristics
Consequences
Facing up to Environmental Issues
The urban heat island
Dust domes and smog
Finding a place for refuse
Only One Home: Impacts on the Environment
Grasping the Basics — Environmentally Speaking
Contributing Factors: Pollution on the Move
Making an impact
Spreading the mess
The water cycle
Wind
Currents
Migration and trade
Focusing on food chains
The “chain” of events
The potential for danger
THE ROLE OF ATTITUDES TOWARD NATURE
Going Global: Environmental Issues Affecting Us All
Deforestation
Biodiversity loss
Soil degradation
Ocean acidification
Overfishing
Acid precipitation
The range of impacts
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY: WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
The geographical dimension
Climate change
The global greenhouse
Winners and losers
Taking on the Challenges of Tomorrow
The Part of Tens
Ten Organizations for Geography in Action
American Association of Geographers (AAG)
American Geographical Society (AGS)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE)
National Geographic Society (NGS)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Population Reference Bureau (PRB)
Royal Geographical Society (RGS)
United States Census Bureau
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Ten Interesting Career Paths for Geographers
Area Specialist
Educator
Environmental Manager
GIS Technician
Health Services Planner
Location Analyst
Market Analyst
Remote Sensing Analyst
Transportation Planner
Urban Planner
Ten Things You Can Forget
The Bermuda Triangle
Cold Canadian Air
“Coming Out of Nowhere”
“The Continent”
The Democratic Republic of …
The Flat Earth Society
Land of the Midnight Sun
“The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain”
The Seven Seas
Tropical Paradise
Ten Great Places for Online Geography
Any County/Local GIS Department
Geocaching
Geoguessr
Geoinquiries
Google Earth
Google Lit Trips
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
World Bank Open Data
World Factbook
Your State’s Geographic Alliance
Index. A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
About the Author
Dedication
Author’s Acknowledgments
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
