Mastering AP Human Geography Unit 1: Maps, Spatial Patterns, and Geographic Concepts

so your AP Human Geography unit one 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 Max and oh baby you need to get cozy and comfortable

with maps because maps are one of the most 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 a 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

studio 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 not a very important consideration for you young geographers

is getting an A in your class in a 500 examine me baby you know I got you so click the link below to have a look at

the tastiest AP Human Geography review materials in existence the AP hug heimler review guide this thing has

exclusive unit reviews that are not here on YouTube it's got no guides to follow along with them practice questions a

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response it is the fastest way to study for your course so check it out and back to spatial path 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 men so

the absolute 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 you know 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 phenomenal 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 uh fart in the wind

um yeah yeah that that would indeed be a phenomenon anyway back to it a phenomena or cluster that means they are close

together if they're dispersed that means there's more space between them and then the last facial 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 one to a thousand which just

means one inch on the map represents a thousand 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 large but a small scale map means that we're zoomed out to a

national or Global level and the details are small 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 bill so large scale means large buildings and then small

scale means small building look at that guys 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 at seven okay now

there are two kinds of maps that you need to know the first are reference maps and this kind of map display

specific Geographic locations and the key word there is location so for example a road map shows the locations

of roads and highways or topographical map shows mountains and valleys and depicts changes in elevation or

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 build 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 a thematic map now whereas reference Maps major in

displaying Geographic locations the purpose of a thematic map is to display geographic information or you know 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 spice you can see

here the map of the 2020 presidential election that indicates a state voted Republican and blew 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 population and 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 Ice Line map is a topographic map which shows changes in

elevation and 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 butt loads

bigger than India but this cardogram distorts the land masses because it's depicting population of which India's is

about 10 times as large as Russia and fun fact is 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 the Earth in case you didn't know is a sphere it's like you know three dimensions so that

means any attempt to represent three dimensions on a flat two-dimensional map will necessarily have some you know

wonky outcome 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 I want to introduce you to four of these projection 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 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 no is the Peter's

projection which challenges the eurocentric Mercator projection by depicting the continents according to

the true size of their landmass 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 Peter's 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 has been based

on the purpose of the map okay now in order for any kind of phenomena 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

but 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 100 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 thinking thinking qualitative more feely feel 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 et cetera 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 G geospatial technology 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 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 U.S 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 GP 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 Facility and yet

another geospatial technology you need to know is what's called remote sensor 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 sensors but this can also be done through aerial photography for areas that require more detail like you

know 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 observation this is when a researcher or geographer

physically visits the location and makes written observations about what they see and these observations can be recorded

in a number of 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 made

all kinds of valuable notes in their journals which help policymakers in the East understand what was there 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 funsing they collect it

because 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 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 you look up the nearest Chipotle so without all that Geographic data how else are you gonna eat that burrito and

spend most of your time at Disney World on the toilet not gonna happen 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 into educating socioeconomic status to see where most people live for another

example many businesses use covet 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 U.S the federal government collects metric but loads 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 depending on where people live it affects how many representatives

are apportioned to that state in the House of Representatives they 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 all right 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 going to judge

it 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 relations in other words we're going to consider the tools

that help us think geographically first is absolute and relative location 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 and they make finding exact locations or you know 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 parallel now 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 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 there's

28.3772 degrees north and 81.5707 degrees west you're going to 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 does 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 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 in 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 another 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 than 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 a part 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 Wi-Fi signal has three bars but if I stand outside away from my house the signal begins to weaken so the distance

decays or it weakens the signal now the same is true of populations in different locations the further apart they are 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 by boat took at best two months

but now we get an airplane and 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

compress 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 Disney it's 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

there are three main types of patterns that you should know a random pattern means there is no order whatsoever like

you know looking at who has Comcast versus 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 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 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 no matter how any

videos you watch the SAS is available in unlimited measures but don't put that on your test like use the sun example that

that'll earn you some point but there are also non-renewable resources which are only available in limited measure

like for example oil once those are gone they're gone okay now the second focus of geographers in their study of human

environmental interaction 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 warm 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

environment interaction is a 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 you know 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 four 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 interacts first is environmental determinism which

was a theory that flourished in the 19th and early 20th century 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 setting up their Empires all over the dang world this was

the dominant theory of human environmental interaction 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 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 is 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 environment-shaped 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 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 are you still with me all right 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 nicely analysis means thinking about data and coming to conclusions about it

scale indicates how large or small that data set 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 data set and there are four

basic scales of analysis that you need to cram into your brain folds Global Regional national and local 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 small 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 for example global scale is important for

studying the effects of pollution well 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 comparisons between two or more regions for example a geographer might want to study life expectancy in

sub-Saharan Africa and to compare it with life expectancy in North America that could be helpful data for

governments making decisions about health care 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 scale 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 and 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 you know 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

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 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 further you zoom out the less detail the further you

zoom in the more details 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 region I told you I would and I am not a man who breaks his promise 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 that unifying principle can be you know cultural like

a shared language or economic like a treaty that bind States together into an economic unit or a pattern or activity

like farming or dang near anything else that helps bind people together and when you know it there are three types of

geographical regions that you have to know first is a formal region you might hear this called a uniform region or a

homogeneous region don't get confused those are all the same things so what makes a region formal is that it is

linked by common traits like 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 piece it's a 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 will be created by a city the downtown area acts

as the node and it is surrounded by many miles of sub the city is where most of the work takes place in 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 note 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 sunnis and these

religious and cultural divisions have led to multiple Civil Wars between these groups the point is yes these regions

can't overlap but remember it's geographers who are defined finding these regions so that they 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 draw they're typically more religious and many Southerners hold similar value

but the borders of perceptual regions are vague like where does the South End is it here or here or here that's the

point the south is a concept that exists mainly in the minds of Southerners and therefore there is no 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 those boundaries are often the subject of disputes and when they are they are

known as contested boundaries a good example of contested boundaries is the region of Kashmir at the intersection of

Pakistan India and China and the British government formerly withdrew from this region at the end of their colonial

dominance chaos erupted Pakistan was created by by partition as a home to the Muslims while mainly Hindus remained in

India 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 five on your examinement

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