Definitions: Culture, Cultural Geography, and Cultural Landscapes

Culture is mostly easily defined as "learned behavior" and consists of several critical elements:
 

  • language -- sounds and signs
          Optional: create     USA language maps by county
  • religion,
  • race (historically defined by biological features, e.g., skin color, noise size & shape, type of hair, body size, etc.) and its sub-category, ethnicity (defined by cultural traits of a minority defined by nationality, language, religion, etc.) For example, Germans in the U.S. are an ethnic group but the Germans in Germany are not an ethnic group but they are a nationality (a cultural group occupying a specific territory),
  • food,
  • clothing, and
  • politics.

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    Cultures are

  • specific,
  • located in space,
  • purposeful,
  • rule-following,
  • rule-making, and
  • communicating and interacting with people.

    Cultural geography consists of

  • cultural area,
  • cultural history, and
  • cultural ecology.

    Cultural landscapes consist of

  • topography,
  • vegetation,
    •
  • structures, and
  • settlement patterns. 
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    The seasons and sunrises and sunsets are also an important aspects of human experiences and do alter the appearance and biological and human dynamics of landscapes. But weather and climate are neither permanent features of the cultural landscape nor result in different cultural landscapes per se.

    Snow, for example, on an Amish farmstead or a skyscraper does not alter the fundamental differences between these two profoundly different cultural landscapes. Yet, forest fires dramatically alter vegetative and built environments, as the California fires of October 2003 illustrate -- the most destructive wildfires in history: 20 deaths, 1,800 homes burned, 567,000 acres (about 890 square miles) burned from Mexico to Los Angeles.

     

    Culturally, what really is a 100 percent "American"?
     UW-Eau Claire Seal

     

    Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 1 June 1996; last revised on 24 May 2007.