Question

The map above shows where people live in the United States. Areas that are darker blue are areas where people

live close together. Areas that are lighter colors are places where people live farther apart. As a geographer, if you
were to study where people live and why they choose to live in these places, which of the six essential elements of
geography would you be using? Explain your answer in at least three sentences.

Answer 1

If I were studying where people live, I might be using the element of geography called “human systems.” I would be learning about where people live and why they do the things they do. I might also be using the element of geography called “the world in spatial terms.” I would be studying locations, and I would be learning about why things happen in some places but not in others.

Answer 2

The most important of the six essential elements of Geography, to explain the distribution of the population in the United States, is human systems.

Human systems are all the networks of human relations that cover a geographic area. They include economic systems, which are formed by groups of humans enganging in productive activities of all sorts.

In the modern era, humans tend to live in cities, specially in developed countries like the United States. The distribution of the population of the United States, that we can see on the map, is likely the result of th concentration of such human systems in the darker areas.