FIVE KEY THEMES FOR GEOGRAPHY

1. Location
 Location is position or point that occupies some of Earth’s surface
 Location is defined in two terms:
 Absolute Location - refers to latitude and longitude coordinate of a certain
place.
Example: latitude and longitude coordinates, address
 Relative Location - refers to the location of one place in relation to its
surroundings.
Example: Continental location, Maritime location
2. Place
 Place refers to both the human and physical characteristics of a location
 Physical characteristics might include mountain, river, soil, beaches, wildlife, etc.
 Human characteristics result in the ideas and actions of the people that change the
environment, like roads, building, etc.
 The image we create about a place are based on experience, both intellectual and
emotional
 Describe a location’s features
 Physical Features: those that occurs naturally, like plant and animal life,
landforms, elevation, climate soil and bodies of water
 Cultural Features: created by human beings who live there, number of people
who like in a particular place, how close together people live, and how they make
a living

3. Human-Environment Interaction
 Human both shape and are shaped by physical and human characteristics of their
environment
 How people interact with their people
 Human adapt their natural environment (ADAPTATION), like hunting, fishing
 Human change environment to make like better and suit their needs
(Modification), like cutting down forest to build home, mining minerals

4. Movement
 Refers to the transportation of people, goods and ideals throughout the world
 As people travel from one location to another they bring with them and transmit their
ideals and understanding with those that they interact
 As goods are exported and imported throughout the world’s nation, the world
becomes smaller and nations becomes more dependent on outside sources
 As technology improvement increase, so do the dissemination of ideas throughout
the world
 The way people, goods and ideals travel from place to place
 Two example:
 Transportation
 Railroads
 Roads
 Plane routes
 Sea routes
 Communication
 Books
 Newspaper
  Telephone
 Radio
 Televisions
 Internet

5. Regions
 Areas of the world that have something in common
 There are three types of regions:
 Formal region - refers to the regions that are specifically spelled out by
government bodies.
 Functional regions - refers to the regions that exist because they are served a
particular function, such as school boundaries
 Vernacular region - refers to the regions that are very loosely defines by people’s
understanding, example: Middle East, Southern Philippines.