Geography For Dummies

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!

Auteur

Jerry T. Mitchell, PhD, is Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina and an avid world traveler.

Texte du rabat

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!

Contenu

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 mo…