UNIT 1: PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The Earth is full of movement and in a human-dominated planet, movement primarily refers to the translocation of human beings, their goods, and their ideas from one end of the planet to another. Thus, the theme of movement becomes an important part of geographical studies. Movement deals with studies of population immigration, emigration, and distribution in the countries of the world. It is this physical movement of people that has allowed the human race to inhabit all the continents and islands of the world and also explore the depths of the oceans and land on the moon. Another aspect of movement is the transport of goods from one place on the Earth to another. In other words, it is the study of human trade, a practice that has shaped human civilizations and cultures since the time the first Homo sapiens emerged. The third and an extremely vital aspect of the movement theme is the movement of ideas. It is this interchange of ideas between the nations of the world that allows the unification of the human civilization and promotes its growth and prosperity. Thus, the theme of movement forms an integral part of geographical studies.

An area on the planet that is composed of places with a unifying characteristic is a region, one of the five themes of geography. A region is defined by its uniform physical or human characteristics. A region whose boundaries are formally defined is known as a formal region. For example, metropolitan cities, districts, provinces, countries, and continents can be regarded as a formal region that is unified by a common political entity. A functional region usually encompasses a central point with defined boundaries and the area around it that is connected via a well-developed network of transportation and communication systems that facilitates the movement of people, goods, and ideas within that system. A large metropolitan city including its suburbs like the New York City in the United States, Mumbai in India, Tokyo in Japan, or Beijing in China, can be regarded as functional regions. The third type of region is vernacular region. When closely placed in the world have unifying characteristics, we tend to imagine these places bound by an “imaginary border.” Thus, though physical maps do not formally define the boundaries of such regions, we tend to create “mental maps” of such regions.For example, we often group the countries in the Arabian Peninsula as the “Middle-East region”, though such a region is never mentioned in the physical maps of the world.