“This Is My Work And Only My Work.”- Optimus Prime –Block: 2
Carlos Rodriguez, Ryan Durga, Jasmine Hankerson, Dajeanne Pitter, Kimberleigh
Ramey, Yesmarie Crespo, Caitlyn Sause, Kayla Surico, Patricia Baker, Melissa
Borja, Eliezer Maldonado, Angelica Cotto.
“Human Geography In action” By: Michael Kuby, John Harner, and Patricia Gober.
Chapter 2 – Layers of Tradition: Culture Regions at Different Scales. (Pg.34-47)
Introduction
 Culture refers to a people’s way of life, their behavior, and their shared
understandings about themselves and the world.
 Region is an area with common characteristics such as aspects of culture
and complexities of human lifestyles.
 When using region one is using a concept that organizes and identifies
areas of the world.
 All regions are mental constructs and there is nothing sacred or
absolute about them.
 Every ones conception of a region can differ from each other.
Regions
 There are three types of regions. Formal region, Functional region
and Perceptual Region.
 In a Formal region there is many common human characteristic
such as language, religion, or level of economic development.
 There also the physical characteristics such as climate, landform
or vegetation.
 An example of this would be a megalopolis in the sense that it
represents a dense concentration of human activity and the
dominance of urban over rural land use.
 In a Functional region everything is held together by a common
set of linkages or spatial interactions.
 A Megalopolis can be considered a Functional region because
it is linked by extensive movements of people, goods, and
information.
 In a Perceptual region we see regions that are based on people’s
feelings or belief about the area and are subjective rather than
natural.
 Vernacular regions are a type of perceptual region that refers
to the traits of common folks such as their speech,
architecture, or their dress.
 In a city an individual would have the sense of perceptual
region by where the individual fells the area. Such as
downtown, the hood, warehouse district or the heights.
 Geographers use Culture traits to identify a Culture region.
 Culture traits are things like religion, land use, language, and
headwear.
 Cultural regions help us understand a place and its people. But
the problematic thing about it is that it’s difficult to draw
precise boundaries.
 An example of this would be the picture above where some
regions overlap each other and it’s difficult to tell exactly
where one ends or begins.
Cultural Landscape
 Each culture region has its own Cultural Landscape with distinctive
characteristics.
 People modify their environment to their specific needs,
technologies, and lifestyles.
 Culture is evident everywhere throughout the landscape. Not
only in adaptations to the natural landscape but names of
place, design of a city, or even the architecture.
 Cultural beliefs can be expressed as symbols like monuments,
flags, slogans, or religious icons.
 Cultural Landscape is the human imprint on the Landscape.
Meining’s Terms
 The zone of concentration or the most pure area that possesses all of
the culture traits is called the core. The core is the heart and soul of
any and every region.
 The Domain is an area which the particular culture is dominant but
less intense than the core.
 Then we have the sphere where other zones influence the specific
culture with their own culture.
 A cultures core can lie within another cultures sphere.
 Syncretism is when new cultural traits emerge as a cultural hybrid of
two distinct parent traits.
 Syncretism can occur in many aspects of culture such as fusing
cultures.
Ecological Trilogy
 A unique combination of adaptations evolved in the Middle East that
enabled human society to survive the arid conditions is called
ecological trilogy.
 Ecological trilogy involves sophisticated interactions among three
kinds of communities. The three communities are Village, Tribe,
and City.
 Each trilogy has a unique cultural landscape that is modified so
that it is adapted into its environment.
 In contrast to popular perceptions the Middle East is not
mainly desert. Desserts are actually located in the Northern
part of Africa.