Places and regions

Places exist in a physical location, but they are generally human-defined: "my street," "my town," "my state," or "my country." It is people or groups of people who give these terms special meaning. Places are known for their particular physical characteristics, such as the sawgrass prairies of the Everglades or the jagged skyline of the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. Places are also known for their human characteristics, such as interstate highways or housing developments. A place is subject to change over time: witness almost any Florida city and consider how it has grown over the past several decades.

Geographers divide the world into regions in order to organize facts and ideas about people, cultures, and environments. These divisions may serve different purposes for various professionals such as cartographers, policy makers, or environmental scientists. Regions may be identified by cultural components such as major religions, types of government, or language groups. Other types of regions are identified by physical factors such as natural resources or topography.

Probably the best-known division of the world into regions is that of global hemispheres. The equator divides the Earth at zero degrees latitude into the northern and southern hemispheres, and the Prime Meridian divides the globe at zero degrees longitude into eastern and western hemispheres.

These National Geographic links provide a focused look at the concepts of 'place' and 'region.' The link for place comprises an activity for students in grades 1-2 on learning to recognize place characteristics in their own communities.

Place: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/characteristics-of-place/

Region: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/region/