Maps and the Geospatial Revolution
Lesson 2 – Lecture 1
Anthony C. Robinson, Ph.D
Lead Faculty for Online Geospatial Education
John A. Dutton e-Education Institute
Assistant Director, GeoVISTA Center
Department of Geography
The Pennsylvania State University
This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
Spatial is Special
• Geography depends on spatial
thinking and spatial relationships
• Tobler’s First Law of Geography:
– Everything is related to everything
else, but near things are more
related than distant things
• Common sense, right?
• More related ≠ more similar
Spatial is Special
• Spatial-autocorrelation
– Measures the degree of similarity between
observations located near each other
• For example
– Airports collect business dudes who use
bluetooth headsets and drink massive lattes
Thinking like a Geographer
• Spatial thinking underpins everything a Geographer
does
• You use spatial thinking all the time
– Making a decision on where to take your next vacation
– Determining whether or not you can make it to the
next rest area
• Good way to start exploring this is by trying to think
aspatially first
Thinking like a Geographer
• Let’s look at some fake data!
# of Annoying
People
Total
Population
Average Age
Average
Income
# of SUVs
County
State
72
998
26
48000
72 Hatchback
Wholefood
48
2000
65
32000
48 Dialupia
Wholefood
776
2250
44
72000
750 Sriracha
Traderjo
789
3500
36
12000
700 Muffintown
Wholefood
469
1200
31
22500
461 Fixieplaid
Traderjo
525
1400
43
66000
400 Burb-on-Burb
Wholefood
62
65
33
92000
2300
16450
51
35000
1950 Pabsto
Traderjo
9654
52510
44
49000
8912 University Collegeville
Traderjo
779
1459
41
61000
59 Bluetooth Village
398 Kingo
Wholefood
Traderjo
Thinking like a Geographer
Thinking like a Geographer
Graduated Circles = each circle size represents a range of values
Thinking like a Geographer
Choropleth Map = areas filled with colors to represent a range of values
This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
Maps and the Geospatial Revolution www.coursera.org/course/maps
Twitter @MapRevolution
Online Geospatial Education @ Penn State www.pennstategis.com