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What are factors that create a culture?

Cultural Geography

• To understand human geography, culture is a key to that understanding

• Culture includes all the features of a people’s way of life

• It can be learned or passed down through generations

• Important parts of culture include: language, religion, architecture, clothing, economics, family life, food, and government

Culture Traits

• Activities and behaviors• Learning to read and do math are common

around the world• Vary from place to place

How to Eat?!??!• Americans- use fork, spoon, knife• Chinese-use chopsticks• Ethiopians- Use their fingers

• All correct according to location!!!

Lets create a bubble map of culture traits

Culture Traits

Language

Religion

Government

Food

Clothing

Architecture

Economics Family Life

• Culture traits can be linked• USA and Canada- the Amish lead a simple life

away from a modern society– Do not use cars, electricity, and telephones– Do not use modern farm technology like tractors

Culture Regions

• Many different regions in the world and have their own way of life

• Includes the way they use their land, resources they depend on, religions they practice, settlement patterns, role of women, and government

• Area with shared culture traits is called a culture region– This can be an individual country where

there is one dominant culture like Japan– Countries can include multiple culture

regions like Africa where there are many ethnic groups• Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa

• Country borders can divide culture regions and separate members of one ethnic group– Kurds are one ethnic group but the

borders of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq divide them

• Culture regions can also be made up of several countries– Australia and New Zealand

Culture Change• Traits change through time… Example:

clothing• Can be more complex than clothing though– Shopping in U.S. in cities

1800s

1900s

2000s

• Migration, war, and trade have caused culture to change- new ways of life– Example: Spain colonized the

Americas, brought over horses, Indians then acquired them

• When an individual or group adopts some of the traits of another culture it is called acculturation– Immigrants to the United States– Learn new language and adopt a

new way of life• Assimilation- adopts culture

completely

Innovation and Diffusion• Two concepts to understand how culture changes• Innovation- new ideas that a culture accepts– Some ideas last longer than others…. Baseball

• Diffusion- Idea or innovation spreads from one person to another…. Jazz

• 3 Types of Diffusion– Expansion-spreads throughout a society– Relocation-When people move to new places– Hierarchical- From places of greater size to smaller size

Globalization• Communications networks deliver information

constantly around the world• Helps to spread culture traits quickly • Globalization- connections around the world

increase and cultures become more alike• Cultural convergence- different cultures blending– Name brand soft drinks or fast food- Coke &

McDonalds– Mexican food in the United States

Traditionalism

• Following long time practices and opposing many modern technologies and ideas

• Fundamentalism- movement in which people believe in strictly following certain established principles

• Contributes to cultural divergence- cultures becoming separate

Culture Trait Comparison• Create a chart to show

the similarities and differences of the two countries– You will be assigned the

countries

• Use your phone or book to help you complete the chart

• Use the 8 traits to complete the chart

Country 1

Country 2

Language

Religion

Government

Food

Clothing

Architecture

Economics

Family Life

Culture CubeIt’s All About You!

• Name in the middle square• In the rest of the boxes, draw/describe YOUR

culture using the 8 culture traits as a guide• This will eventually create a cube that we will

glue together!• Remember this is YOUR culture not America!!!