The 5 Themes of Geography

•Location•Place•Region

•Movement•Human-Environment Interaction

Location• There are 2 ways to define location. • Absolute Location: a place’s exact position

on Earth using latitude and longitude. • These are imaginary lines drawn around

Earth to help geographers describe places. • Example: Philadelphia is located at about

39°N and 75° W on Earth.• Relative Location: the location of a place relative to another place.

• Example: Philadelphia is located on the East Coast of The U.S

How can you find an exact location of a

place?

Longitude and Latitude

Longitude and Latitude• Imaginary lines that are drawn around Earth to

help geographers study location of places. • Latitude: Horizontal lines that run EAST to

WEST. Latitude is the distance north or south of the Equator, measured in units called degrees.

• Longitude: Vertical lines that run NORTH to SOUTH. Longitude is the distance east or west of the Prime Meridian, measured in degrees.

• Philadelphia is located at about 39°N and 75° W on Earth.

Equator and Prime Meridian

• The Equator marks 0 latitude. Think of it as Earth’s belt. It runs directly around Earth’s middle.

• The Prime Meridian marks 0 longitude. It runs from top to bottom of Earth.

• Each half of Earth is called a hemisphere.

Place• Human and physical features at a

specific location. • Example (physical feature): Hawaii is

an archipelago, a series of islands. • Example (human feature): Hawaiian

people speak the Hawaiian language and have festivals called luaus where they practice the hula dance.

Region• A region is an area with a unifying

human or physical feature such as population, history, climate, or landforms.

• Example: The Rocky Mountain Region in Colorado is a region of the United States.

Movement• Movement explores how people, goods, and

ideas get from one place to another. Movement helps to explain cultural changes

• Example #1: Computers spread information

to mass amounts of people. • Example #2: Foreign countries shipping

goods to be sold globally. • Example #3: Action News on Channel 6

reports current events.

Human-Environment Interaction• Considers how people affect their

environment, or their natural surroundings, and how their environment affects them.

• Example: Students take on a recycling project and clean up a park in their town.

• Example: The Nile River was the source of life for the Egyptian people.