Physical and human geography, maps and regional evidence
Domain II tests spatial thinking: how physical and human features are distributed, why they are where they are, and how maps and data represent them. Expect map interpretation, scale and projection questions, population and migration, climate, and economic geography.
Core tools
- Location: absolute (latitude/longitude, address) versus relative (near, north of).
- Five themes: location, place, human–environment interaction, movement, and region.
- Projections: all flat maps distort. Mercator is conformal and represents constant-bearing courses as straight lines but exaggerates high-latitude area; equal-area projections preserve area but distort shape; Robinson is a compromise.
- Scale: representative fraction (1:100,000), bar, and verbal scales. Scale conversions are linear, but area scales by the square.
- Topographic maps: contour interval is constant; closely spaced contours mean steep terrain; hachures show depressions.
- Climate controls: latitude, altitude, distance from water, ocean currents, prevailing winds, and mountain barriers such as rain shadows.
- Population: density is people per area, not total population; pyramids show age and sex structure; push factors drive people away, pull factors attract.
- Regions: formal (uniform), functional (nodal, organized around a center), and perceptual (how people imagine an area).
- Scale of analysis: the same pattern can look different at local, regional, and global scales.
- Human–environment interaction: adaptation, modification, and dependence all carry costs and benefits.
Worked example
A map has a scale of 1:100,000. A rectangular lake measures 2 cm by 3 cm. What is its real area?
- Convert: 1 cm = 100,000 cm = 1 km.
- Side lengths: 2 km by 3 km.
- Area: 2 × 3 = 6 km².
A common error is multiplying 2 × 3 × 100,000 or treating the scale as applying only once; area uses the square of the linear scale.
Traps
- Mercator size error: Greenland looks as large as Africa; it is not.
- Linear versus area scale: doubling a map distance quadruples map area.
- Weather versus climate: a cold week is weather; a decades-long pattern is climate.
- Density versus distribution: a region may have low overall average density while its population is strongly concentrated in a few crowded cities.
- Contour misreads: downhill is not always obvious; check hachures and stream flow.
- Region types: a city's commuting zone is functional, not formal.