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Regions
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and the environment ( environmental geography). Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such as national borders are defined in law. More confined or well bounded portions are called '' locations'' or ''places''. Apart from the global continental regions, there are also hydrospheric and atmospheric regions that cover the oceans, and discrete climates above the land and water masses of the planet. The land and water global regions are divided into subregions geographically bounded by large geological features that influence large-scale ecologies, such as plains and features. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land
Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of Earth not submerged by the ocean or another body of water. It makes up 29.2% of Earth's surface and includes all continents and islands. Earth's land surface is almost entirely covered by regolith, a layer of rock, soil, and minerals that forms the outer part of the crust. Land plays an important role in Earth's climate system, being involved in the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and water cycle. One-third of land is covered in trees, another third is used for agriculture, and one-tenth is covered in permanent snow and glaciers. The remainder consists of desert, savannah, and prairie. Land terrain varies greatly, consisting of mountains, deserts, plains, plateaus, glaciers, and other landforms. In physical geology, the land is divided into two major categories: Mountain ranges and relatively flat interiors called cratons. Both form over millions of years through plate tect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Region
A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora and fauna of the region are likely to be influenced by its geographical and geological factors, such as soil and water availability, in a significant manner. Thus most natural regions are homogeneous ecosystems. Human impact can be an important factor in the shaping and destiny of a particular natural region. Main terms The concept "natural region" is a large basic geographical unit, like the vast boreal forest region. The term may also be used generically, like in alpine tundra, or specifically to refer to a particular place. The term is particularly useful where there is no corresponding or coterminous official region. The Fens of eastern England, the Thai highlands, and the Pays de Bray in Normandy, are examples of this. Others mig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continent
A continent is any of several large geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention (norm), convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single large landmass, a part of a very large landmass, as in the case of Asia or Europe within Eurasia, or a landmass and nearby islands within its continental shelf. Due to these varying definitions, the number of continents varies; up to seven or as few as four geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Most English-speaking world, English-speaking countries recognize seven regions as continents. In order from largest to smallest in area, these seven regions are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia (continent), Australia (sometimes called Oceania or Australasia). Different variations with fewer continents merge some of these regions; examples of this are merging Asia and Europe into Eurasia, "Most people recognize seven continents—Asia, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land Mass
A landmass, or land mass, is a large region or area of land that is in one piece and not noticeably broken up by oceans. The term is often used to refer to lands surrounded by an ocean or sea, such as a continent or a large island. In the field of geology, a landmass is a defined section of continental crust extending above sea level. Continents are often thought of as distinct landmasses and may include any islands that are part of the associated continental shelf. When multiple continents form a single contiguous land connection, the connected continents may be viewed as a single landmass. Earth's largest landmasses are (starting with largest): # Afro-Eurasia (main landmass of the geoscheme region of the same name and its continental parts Africa and Eurasia - or Europe and Asia; the center of Earth's land hemisphere, comprising more than half of Earth's landmass) # Americas (main landmass of the geo-region of the same name and its continental parts North and South America; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regional Geography
Regional geography is one of the major traditions of geography. It focuses on the interaction of different cultural and natural geofactors in a specific land or landscape, while its counterpart, systematic geography, concentrates on a specific geofactor at the global level. Basics Attention is paid to unique characteristics of a particular region such as natural elements, human elements, and regionalization which covers the techniques of delineating space into regions. Rooted in the tradition of the German-speaking countries, the two pillars of regional geography are the idiographic study of ''Länder'' or spatial individuals (specific places, countries, continents) and the typological study of ''Landschaften'' or spatial types (landscapes such as coastal regions, mountain regions, border regions, etc.). Approach Regional geography is also a certain approach to geographical study, comparable to quantitative geography or critical geography. This approach prevailed during th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mountain Range
A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arisen from the same cause, usually an orogeny. Mountain ranges are formed by a variety of geological processes, but most of the significant ones on Earth are the result of plate tectonics. Mountain ranges are also found on many planetary mass objects in the Solar System and are likely a feature of most terrestrial planets. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, and volcanic landforms resulting in a variety of rock types. Major ranges Most geolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soil Type
A soil type is a taxonomic unit in soil science. All soils that share a certain set of well-defined properties form a distinctive soil type. Soil type is a technical term of soil classification, the science that deals with the systematic categorization of soils. Every soil of the world belongs to a certain soil type. Soil type is an abstract term. In nature, you will not find soil types. You will find soils that belong to a certain soil type. In hierarchical soil classification systems, soil types mostly belong to the higher or intermediate level. A soil type can normally be subdivided into subtypes, and in many systems several soil types can be combined to entities of higher category. However, in the first classification system of the United States (Whitney, 1909), the soil type was the lowest level and the mapping unit. For the definition of soil types, some systems use primarily such characteristics that are the result of soil-forming processes ( pedogenesis). An example is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drainage Basin
A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide, made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills. A basin may consist of smaller basins that merge at river confluences, forming a hierarchical pattern. Other terms for a drainage basin are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water basin, and impluvium. In North America, they are commonly called a watershed, though in other English-speaking places, " watershed" is used only in its original sense, that of the drainage divide line. A drainage basin's boundaries are determined by watershed delineation, a common task in environmental engineering and science. In a closed drainage basin, or endorheic basin, rather than flowing to the ocean, water converges toward the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the species distribution, distribution of species and ecosystems in geography, geographic space and through evolutionary history of life, geological time. Organisms and biological community (ecology), communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, allopatric speciation, isolation and habitat species-area curve, area. Phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals. Mycogeography is the branch that studies distribution of fungi, such as mushrooms. Knowledge of spatial variation in the numbers and types of organisms is as vital to us today as it was to our early human ancestors, as we adapt to heterogeneous but geographically predictable Natural environment, environments. Biogeography is an integrative field of inquiry that unites concepts and information from ecology, evolutionary biology, taxonomy (bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biome
A biome () is a distinct geographical region with specific climate, vegetation, and animal life. It consists of a biological community that has formed in response to its physical environment and regional climate. In 1935, Tansley added the climatic and soil aspects to the idea, calling it ''ecosystem''. The International Biological Program (1964–74) projects popularized the concept of biome. However, in some contexts, the term ''biome'' is used in a different manner. In German literature, particularly in the Walter terminology, the term is used similarly as '' biotope'' (a concrete geographical unit), while the biome definition used in this article is used as an international, non-regional, terminology—irrespectively of the continent in which an area is present, it takes the same biome name—and corresponds to his "zonobiome", "orobiome" and "pedobiome" (biomes determined by climate zone, altitude or soil). In the Brazilian literature, the term ''biome'' is sometimes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biotope
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of flora (plants), plants and fauna (animals), animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term habitat (ecology), "habitat", which is more commonly used in English-speaking countries. However, in some countries these two terms are distinguished: the subject of a habitat is a population, the subject of a biotope is a ''biocoenosis'' or "biological community". It is an English loanword derived from the German '':de:Biotop, Biotop'', which in turn came from the Greek ''bios'' (meaning 'life') and ''topos'' ('place'). (The related word ''geotope'' has made its way into the English language by the same route, from the German '':de:Geotop, Geotop''.) Ecology The concept of a biotope was first advocated by Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), a German zoologist famous for the recapitulation theory. In his book ''General Morphology'' (1866), which defines the term "ecology", he st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems are controlled by external and internal Environmental factor, factors. External factors—including climate—control the ecosystem's structure, but are not influenced by it. By contrast, internal factors control and are controlled by ecosystem processes; these include decomposition, the types of species present, root competition, shading, disturbance, and succession. While external factors generally determine which Resource (biology), resource inputs an ecosystem has, their availability within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors. Ecosystems are wikt:dynamic, dynamic, subject to periodic disturbances and always in the process of recovering from past disturbances. The tendency of an ecosystem to remain clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
