Spatial Patterns of Culture
The Spatial Patterns of Culture domain tests how culture traits are distributed, how they spread, and how they appear on the landscape: culture regions, diffusion, language, religion, ethnicity, population, and migration.
Culture regions and diffusion
Formal regions share a trait; functional regions are organized around a node; perceptual regions exist in people's images. Relocation diffusion moves traits with migrating people; expansion diffusion spreads them outward. Contagious diffusion spreads by nearby contact, hierarchical diffusion spreads from large centers to smaller places, and stimulus diffusion occurs when an idea is adopted but modified. Physical, cultural, and political barriers slow diffusion.
Language and religion
Language families are the broadest grouping, such as Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan; branches and dialects subdivide them. A lingua franca is a bridge language; toponyms reveal cultural history. Universalizing religions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism, seek converts; ethnic religions such as Judaism, Hinduism, and Shinto are tied to a people or place. Hearths matter: Islam arose in Arabia, Buddhism in South Asia, Christianity in the Levant.
Population and migration
Population pyramids show age-sex structure: broad bases indicate high fertility, narrow bases aging. The demographic transition moves from high birth and death rates through rapid growth to low rates. Ravenstein's laws hold that most migrants move short distances, long-distance migrants favor big cities, young adults dominate, and each stream has a counterstream. Push-pull factors explain moves; refugees cross borders, while internally displaced persons do not.
Cultural landscape
Folk culture is local, traditional, and place-bound; popular culture is mass-produced and widely diffused, sometimes creating placelessness. Sequent occupancy describes layers of cultural imprint.
Worked example
A new coffee drink appears in New York, then Los Angeles, then regional cities, then small towns. This is hierarchical diffusion because adoption follows the urban size hierarchy rather than simple proximity.
Traps
- Confusing stimulus diffusion with contagious diffusion.
- Treating ethnic religions as universalizing religions.
- Mixing language family with language branch.
- Confusing refugees, who cross borders, with internally displaced persons.