Recitation #1

The World of Mental Maps: Region as a Concept

Often, when the discipline of geography is mentioned, many people of think country names and capital cities. However, the study of geography has very little to do with such trivia. Geographers are more interested in the intention of a map and how people might interpret it, than the various symbols and names that fill the map page. A map is often a reflection of the cartographers experience and/or the purpose of drawing the map in the first place. A way to understand this concept is to explore how difficult it is to reach a consensus definition of a region (see pg. 8 of the textbook: “Defining the Region”). The following exercise will explore the rather malleable concept of region:

1) You will be given a political map of the continental United States (includes state boundaries)

2) Each of you should now outline the region of the Midwest (you could also have chosen the interior west or even the south, as the reading below demonstrates)

3) Now get in groups of 4 or 5 and come up with a consensus “Midwest.” How are your regions different? How do you know where a region is? How do you decide the boundaries?

Most of you have drawn a vernacular region (see Figure 1.7 in the textbook), but you may have also incorporated a formal region (using a specific trait to delimited your boundaries) and a functional region (following the political boundaries of the states).

The following reading explores how a geographer might determine a region, in this case the South: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/REED/tears.html