absolute location - The exact position of an object or place, measured within the spatial coordinates of a grid system. cartography - science or art of making maps circular pattern - Objects that circle another object, another name for it is Centralized Pattern; For example, in an Islamic city, houses and public buildings may circle around the mosque, or house of worship. cultural landscapes - The products of complex interactions between humans and their environments. daylight savings time - the practice of temporarily advancing clocks during the summertime so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less distortion - a change in the shape, size, or position of a place when it is shown on a map environmental geography - The intersection between human and physical geography, which explores the spatial impacts humans have on the physical environment and vice versa. equator - an imaginary line drawn around the earth equally distant from both poles, dividing the earth into northern and southern hemispheres and constituting the parallel of latitude 0°. Eratosthenes - The head librarian at Alexandria during the third century B.C.; he was one of the first cartographers. Performed a remarkably accurate computation of the earth's circumference. He is also credited with coining the term "geography." formal regions - Also called uniform regions, an area that has striking similarities in terms of one or a few physical or cultural features. functional (nodal) regions - areas organized around cores, or nodes GIS - Geographic Information System; a computer system that captures, stores, analyzes, and displays data. globalization - Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope. Greenwich Mean Time - The time in that time zone ecompassing the Prime Meridian, or 0 degrees longitude GPS - Global Positioning System; uses a system of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers to determine precise absolute locations on earth. grid pattern - Also called a rectilinear pattern, reflects a rectangular system of land survey adopted in much of the country under the Ordinance of 1785. Streets form grids and are sometimes labeled "1st", "2nd", "3rd" streets and so on. Hecataeus - Lived in the late 6th and early 5th centuries B.E.C., a Greek scientist, he wrote a book about geography and illustrated a map of the countries and inhabitants of the known world. human geography - a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the built environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earth's surface Idrisi - An 11th century Arab geographer that worked for the king of Sicily to collect geographical information into a remarkably accurate representation of the world. Under his direction, an academy of geographers gathered maps and went out on their own scientific expeditions. Immanuel Kant - German philosopher and geographer in the 1700s that defined geography as the study of interrelated spatial patterns. landscapes - The overall appearance of an area that is shaped by both human and natural influences latitude - The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator. linear pattern - when the pattern in along straight lines, like rivers, streets, or railroad tracks. local time - The standard time in the region that a person lives in location - The position of anything on Earth's surface. longitude - The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0°). George Perkins Marsh - An inventor, diplomat, politician, and scholar, his classic work, "Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action," provided the first description of the extent to which natural systems had been impacted by human actions. Mercator projection - a map projection of the earth onto a cylinder meridian - an arc drawn between North and South poles that measures longitude multi-national corporations - An example of economic globalization in which the business has centers of operation in many parts of the globe. parallel - A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians. pattern - the arrangement of objects on earth's surface in relation to other objects perceptual (vernacular) regions - places that people believe to exist as a part of their cultural identity periphery - the outer boundary of a region; Countries that usually have low levels of economic productivity, low per capita incomes, and generally low standards of living. The world economic periphery includes Africa (except for South Africa), parts of South America, and Asia. Peters Projection - An equal-area projection purposely centered on Africa in an attempt to treat all regions of Earth equally. place - A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character. physical geography - one of the two major divisions of systematic geography; the spatial analysis of the structure, processes, and location of the Earth's natural phenomena such as climate, soil, plants, animals, and topography. physical site characteristic - A location that includes climate, topography, soil, water sources, vegetation, and elevation. prime meridian - The meridian, designated at 0° longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England. Ptolemy - a Greek scholar who lived five hundred years later than Eratosthenes, recalculated the circumference of the earth to be much smaller - by about 9000 miles. He was wrong, but his mistake was taken as truth for hundreds of years. Despite his famous miscalculations, his Guide to Geography included many rough maps of landmasses and bodies of water, and he developed a global grid system that was a forerunner to our modern system of latitude and longitude. random pattern - a pattern that exists if no regular distribution can be seen regionalization - the organization of earth's surface into distinct areas that are viewed as different from other areas Robinson projection - Projection that attempts to balance several possible projection errors. It does not maintain completely accurate area, shape, distance, or direction, but it minimizes errors in each. Carl Sauer - early 20th century geographer from California, shaped the field of Human Geography by arguing that cultural landscapes (products of interactions between humans and their environments) should be the main focus of geographic study. His study is basic to environmental geography, a field that centers on the interaction of human and physical geography.