Final answer:
Geographers organize areas into regions to study similar characteristics. Regions may be formal, functional, or perceptual, defined by political boundaries, functions, or cultural attitudes respectively.
Step-by-step explanation:
Geographers organize areas into regions in order to study their similar characteristics. Regions in Geography are units of space characterized by features such as common government, language, political situation, landform, or cultural attributes. This regional approach helps geographers to map features of interest, compare data, and understand trends and patterns. For instance, formal regions have defined political boundaries like France, functional regions might be defined by structures like the area served by a shopping mall, and cultural regions are based on human activities and traditions.
Types of regions include formal, functional, and perceptual. Formal regions are those defined by governmental or administrative boundaries (e.g., countries, states, cities), functional regions are defined by a function (e.g., a metropolitan area with a city and its suburbs), and perceptual regions are defined by people's attitudes and feelings towards areas (e.g., The South, The Midwest).
Studying the characteristics of regions can involve analyzing human and physical aspects such as climate, vegetation, language, trade networks, political units, river systems, and religion.