b.Class Notes #6

Location can be identified in three ways:

1. Place names 
• A toponym is the name given to a place on Earth.
• Names derived from people of prominence, religious affiliation, physical features, or origins of the settlers.
2. Site
• Site is the physical character of a place.
• Some of the characteristics are: climate, water sources, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation.
3. Situation
• Situation is the location of a place relative to other places.
• Most importantly used for finding an unfamiliar place and for understanding a place's importance, or, in other words, connection to other places, such as interstate highways or rivers.

Region: a Unique Area

• Area on Earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics in a region.
• Most often applied at two scales.
1. Spanning political parties, or
2. Constrained within one political state.
• A region derives its undefined character through the cultural landscape - a combination of cultural, religious, and physical features.
• "Culture is the agent, the natural area the medium, and the cultural landscape the result." - Carl O. Sauer, American Geographer.

Fun facts:

• 81 percent of the United States' population is composed of Christians.