The Arctic Circle is a line of latitude at During winter, the North Pole is away from the sun and does not receive much sunlight. At times, it is dark for most of the twenty-four-hour day. The Antarctic Circle is the corresponding line of latitude at When it is winter in the north, it is summer in the south.
The Arctic and Antarctic Circles mark the extremities southern and northern, respectively of the polar day twenty-four-hour sunlit day and the polar night twenty-four-hour sunless night.
North of the Arctic Circle, the sun is above the horizon for twenty-four continuous hours at least once per year and below the horizon for twenty-four continuous hours at least once per year. Equinoxes Time of the year in March and September when the line of direct sunlight hits the equator; at this time, days and nights are of equal length. This is the same time under which many military operations, international radio broadcasts, and air traffic control systems operate worldwide.
UTC is set in zero- to twenty-four-hour time periods, as opposed to two twelve-hour time periods a. The designations of a. For example, all air flights use the twenty-four-hour time system so the pilots can coordinate flights across time zones and around the world. Time zones are established roughly every 15 degrees longitude so that local times correspond to similar hours of day and night. With this system, the sun is generally overhead at noon in every time zone that follows the degree-wide system.
The continental United States has four main time zones see Table 1. Table 1. Local time zones are either plus or minus determined by the distance from the prime meridian.
In this diagram, 75 W is the central meridian for the eastern standard time zone in the United States. For example, if it is noon in London, then it is 7 a. Since there are twenty-four hours in a day, there are twenty-four time zones on Earth. Each time zone is 15 degrees wide. A problem with the degree time zones is that the zones do not necessarily follow state, regional, or local boundaries. The result is that time zones are seldom exactly 15 degrees wide and usually have varied boundary lines.
In the United States, the boundaries between the different time zones are inconsistent with the lines of longitude; in some cases, time zones zigzag to follow state lines or to keep cities within a single time zone.
Other countries address the problem differently. China, for example, is as large in land area as the United States yet operates on only one time zone for the entire country. A region is a basic unit of study in geography—a unit of space characterized by a feature such as a common government, language, political situation, or landform.
A region can be a formal country governed by political boundaries, such as France or Canada; a region can be defined by a landform, such as the drainage basin of all the water that flows into the Mississippi River; and a region can even be defined by the area served by a shopping mall. Cultural regions can be defined by similarities in human activities, traditions, or cultural attributes.
Geographers use the regional unit to map features of particular interest, and data can be compared between regions to help understand trends, identify patterns, or assist in explaining a particular phenomenon. Regions are traditionally defined by internal characteristics that provide a sense of place. Their boundaries vary with the type of region, whether it is formal, functional, or vernacular; each type has its own meaning and defined purpose.
A formal region Area with specific agreed upon administrative, governmental or political boundaries. Formal boundaries can separate states, provinces, or countries from one another. Physical regions can be included within formal boundaries, such as the Rocky Mountains or New England. An official boundary, such as the boundary of a national park, can be considered a formal boundary. School districts, cities, and county governments have formal boundaries.
Natural physical geographic features have a huge influence on where political boundaries of formal regions are set. If you look at a world map, you will recognize that many political boundaries are natural features, such as rivers, mountain ranges, and large lakes. Alpine mountain ranges in Europe create borders, such as the boundary between Switzerland and Italy. While geographic features can serve as convenient formal borders, political disputes will often flare up in adjacent areas, particularly if valuable natural or cultural resources are found within the geographic features.
Oil drilling near the coast of a sovereign country, for example, can cause a dispute between countries about which one has dominion over the oil resources. The exploitation of offshore fisheries can also be disputed.
A Neolithic mummy of a man who died in BCE caused tension between Italy and Switzerland: the body was originally taken to Innsbruck, Switzerland, but when it was determined that the body was found about 90 meters feet inside the border of Italy, Italian officials laid claim to the body. Functional regions Area defined by boundaries related to a function. When the function of an area ends, the functional region ends and its boundaries cease to exist. For example, a functional region can be defined by a newspaper service or delivery area.
If the newspaper goes bankrupt, the functional region no longer exists. Church parishes, shopping malls, and business service areas are other examples of functional regions. They function to serve a region and may have established boundaries for limits of the area to which they will provide service. An example of a common service area—that is, a functional region—is the region to which a local pizza shop will deliver. Vernacular regions can be fluid—that is, different people may have different opinions about the limits of the regions.
Articles and other writings about Physical Geography can be found in many publications. Our collection includes several journals which look at Physical Geography. To find them, do the following subject search in the online catalog: " physical geography periodicals. Also included is a short list of some of the journal titles we have in our Library's collection. You can use an article index, physically browse the collection or use the search box at the top of the page to find articles.
Toggle navigation. Physical Geography This guide highlights the library and internet resources for Physical Geography. Lucinda M. Email Me. Schedule Appointment. Something new The Andes are attracting global interest again: they hold valuable mineral resources, tourists appreciate their great natural beauty and the diversity of indigenous cultures, climbers scale rock and ice faces, while many others are intrigued by regional political developments, International encyclopedia of geography: people, the Earth, environment, and technology by Douglas Richardson; Noel Castree; Michael F.
Marston, eds. Representing the definitive reference work for this broad and dynamic field, The International Encyclopedia of Geography arises from an unprecedented collaboration between Wiley and the American Association of Geographers AAG to review and define the concepts, research, and techniques in geography and interrelated fields.
The Encyclopedia assembles a truly global group of scholars for a comprehensive, authoritative overview of geography around the world. International encyclopedia of social and behavioral sciences by James D. Wright, ed. From the fully revised and updated edition, this links directly to the section on Geography.
Rain: a natural and cultural history by Cynthia Barnett. Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water.
Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. Self-identified in the mid- to late s, physical geographers and in particular geomorphologists dominated the discipline of geography to the late s. But emphasis on description and classification of climates, landforms, and biomes and an unhealthy dose of environmental determinism weakened physical geography to its low point in the s.
Physical geography along with human geography underwent radical quantification in the late s and early s. The s saw the introduction of behavioural geography , radical geography , and humanistic geography. These were followed in the s by a turn to political economy , the development of feminist geography , and the introduction of critical social theory underpinning the cultural turn.
Together these approaches formed the basis for the growth of critical geography , and the introduction of postmodern and post-structural thinking into the discipline in the s. These various developments did not fully replace the theoretical approaches developed in earlier periods, but rather led to further diversification of geographic thought.
For example, quantitative geography continues to be a vibrant area of geographical scholarship, especially through the growth of GIScience.
The result is that geographical thinking is presently highly pluralist in nature, with no one approach dominating. Castree, N. Retrieved 14 Mar. Although Human Geography is scattered throughout the collections, there is a main section or call number range for the subject. That is GF. You can browse in that section of the stacks, Berry Level 4, to see what's there.
Below is the subject search in the online catalog. Articles and other writings about Human Geography can be found in many publications. Our collection includes several journals which look at Human Geography. A short list follows. You can also use the search box at the top of the page to find relevant articles. Toggle navigation. Human Geography This guide highlights the resources for Human Geography, the study of human settlements in their places. Defining human geography Cultural geography Economic geography Feminist geography Migration studies Migration and detention Diaporas Political geography Feminist political geography Geopolitics Population studies Travel and tourism Urban geography The city Gentrification Scholarly communication Subject Librarian.
Lucinda M. Email Me. Schedule Appointment. Something new Geography on the Job. Featured Geographer Profiles. Career Profiles. Mapping Navigate iconic National Geographic maps with new interactive features. Network of Alliances Join Us! Network of Alliances for Geographic Education Join your state's geography education alliance for professional development opportunities and more.
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