GEOG 1HA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Human Imprint
28 Jun 2018
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Lecture 2: Key Concepts in Human Geography Cont’d
8. Landscape: the visible features of a land/area. Landscapes can be natural/physical and/or
human/cultural.
Regions can be identified/ defined by their landscapes. E.g. Brant, Alberta has a natural
landscape with limited human imprint (more mountains, large areas of grassy fields) as opposed
to urban regions like Toronto that have a more human landscape with more infrastructure, tall
buildings, stores, offices, etc.
Cultural Landscape: the outcome of interactions between people and their environment—the
visible human imprint on the land.
Each cultural group imprints itself differently
Many cultures = many distinct cultural landscapes.
9. Diffusion: movement/ spread of geographic phenomena across space and over time. E.g. the
spread of an epidemic disease, cultural fashions etc.
There are two main forms of diffusion:
Relocation Diffusion: spread of ideas, cultural characteristics etc. from one area to
another via physical movement of people. E.g. immigrants; they bring their culture. Not
only do the people change, but the landscape changes too.
Consider Hamilton:
The surnames of residents in downtown Hamilton neighborhoods range from English to
Italian to Portuguese to Vietnamese. Not only do we notice a change in the people, we
also notice a change in the landscape as new restaurants, places of worship, etc. open
up to cater for the diverse residents.
Expansion Diffusion: the spread of innovations within a single area in a snowballing
process. 2 main sub types include:
Hierarchical: ideas or innovations leapfrog from one important person to
another or from one city to another, temporarily bypassing other people or
rural areas in between. E.g. new movie re leases, the release of new tech like
apple releases, university announcements (from the dean to the teachers to
students)
Contagious: the rapid and widespread diffusion of characteristics throughout
the population. E.g. disease spread, emergency alerts, viral videos, etc.
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