Five Themes of Geography

Each one of these five elements is significant and includes different parts of elements of geography. Each of these five themes will be described in depth in relation to the movie Christy within this essay.

Location is determined everywhere on earth by the means of Latitudinal and longitudinal lines. People use these lines to find absolute location, one of the two types of location. Absolute location is the exact spot on the planet where something resides. An example of this in the movie would be the location of what is referred to as Cuttergap which is actually knows as Del Rio, Tennessee. Its absolute location would be 35°55′11″N, 83°01′33″W. Relative location is determined by the area in relation to places surrounding it. Examples of relative location in the movie are South of Kentucky or North of Alabama. Another them of geography would be Region, which is a area on earth that is defined by unifying characteristics. Three types of region are Formal, Functional, and Perceptive. A formal region in the movie Christy would be a Mountainous Country area. This is because the area in the movie was country-like and surrounded by mountains. A Functional region in the movie would be the Dirt Trails because there were only dirt trails to connect the towns. A way of describing the perceptual region in the movie would be The Country, because when people refer to the country, they are generally referring to areas like the one shown in the movie. Movement, the transportation of people, products, and ideas, is also one of the five themes of geography. Movement appears everywhere in the world and is one of the key factors of geography. An example of movement of people in the movie would include the fact that they have one doctor which is an indication that many people do not travel there often or they would have more people their which would require much more than one doctor. They also travel either by horse or foot, and the mail is also delivered to them by foot, which is an example of movement of both products and ideas. Location, Region, and Place are all significant factors of geography. They each contribute in their own way to geography as a whole.

Another Theme of Geography is Place, which is described by its physical and human characteristics. Physical characteristics may include plant and animal life, climate, and natural phenomena. Human may include land usage, architecture, land ownership, and transportation networks. Culture greatly influences place. Examples of the physical place in the movie Christy would be mountainous regions, large forests, and wide plains. Human characteristics would include wooden houses, a church, vegetable gardens, and large, roughly defined property barriers. When both Physical and Human characteristics are studied, it helps us better understand places on earth.

The final theme of geography would be Human Environmental Interaction. It is how humans adapt, modify, and depend on the environment. People adapt to the environment by dealing with Natural disasters, changing the temperature in buildings, and even changing clothes to fit the weather. We modify the environment by building houses so that we could live on earth more comfortably and also by refining the earth's minerals in order to provide energy for transportation. Humans depend on the environment for raw material such as food, water, wood, stone, minerals, and other equipment needed in order to live in a suitable condition. In Christy, They adapted to the earth by building houses and a church out of what they had available. They also had an entire thanksgiving dinner or several people with what little food they had, despite the bad harvest. When hunting for turkey, they wore camouflage in order to blend with the environment. They modified the environment by cutting trees for wood in order to construct buildings. Another way they modified the earth was by cultivating the soil in order to plant corn in the corn fields. They depend on the environment for adequate arable soil in order for their crops to grow properly. They also depend on the earth for its sufficient living conditions so that they don't die of heat exhaustion or freeze to death.

Location, Region, Movement, Place and Human Environmental Interaction were all described to you in great detail and examples were also given without this essay. This is only a part of what all of geography truly consists of. Each one of these five themes of are part a large system that comes together to form what we know as geography.