- published: 27 Aug 2013
- views: 3360
The terms location and place in geography are used to identify a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term 'location' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than "place" which often has an ambiguous boundary relying more on human/social attributes of place identity and sense of place than on geometry.
An absolute location is designated using a specific pairing of latitude and longitude, a Cartesian coordinate grid (e.g., a Spherical coordinate system), an ellipsoid-based system (e.g., World Geodetic System), or similar methods.
An example would be the longitude and latitude of a place. For instance, the position of Lake Michigan, USA, can be expressed approximately in the WGS84 coordinate system as the location 10.65°N (latitude), 71.6°W (longitude). It is, however, important to remember that this is just one way to describe its position; a small number of the alternative ways can be seen here.
Absolute Location is a term which has no real meaning, since all locations must be expressed relative to something else. For example, longitude is the number of degrees east or west of the Prime Meridian, a line which has arbitrarily been chosen to pass through Greenwich, London. Similarly, latitude is the number of degrees north or south of the Equator. Because latitude and longitude are expressed relative to other lines, a position expressed in latitude and longitude is a relative location.
Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία - geographia, lit. "earth describe-write") is the science that studies the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of the Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 BC). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of the natural and the human phenomena (geography as the study of distribution), the area studies (places and regions), the study of the man-land relationship, and the research in the earth sciences. Nonetheless, the modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical science". Geography is divided into two main branches: the human geography and the physical geography.
Five Themes of Geography: Location
The United States - Location, Size and Regions
Geography mapping: Location of important straits (Google maps)
Asia: Political Divisions, Location and Physical Features
Australia - Location, Boundaries and Physical Divisions
Location and Geographic Tools
India | Location - Chapter 1 Geography NCERT class 11
5 Themes of Geography - Location & Place
Geography mapping: Location of important Lakes of the world (Google maps)
Ukraine's Geographic Challenge
Weber's Industrial Location Theory & Smith's Concept: Fundamentals of Geography
India | Size and Location - Chapter 1 Geography NCERT class 9
50 States Geography: Quickly memorize where each state is located on a map
Learn Geography | Countries Location Maps Quiz