South 고등학교 2학년 Korean Geography Inquiry
Chapters: 5
1. Spatial information and geographic inquiry
Thinking geographically · Fieldwork and GIS data
- Spatial Information Technology: GIS (Class 12 Geography Practical) – A Geographical Information System (GIS) is a computer system that stores, links, analyses and shows data about places. It keeps the world in layers. It needs hardware, software, data, people and methods. Spatial data come in raster (grid of cells) and vector (points, lines, polygons) formats. Data are entered by digitising, scanning, GPS or satellite images and linked to attribute tables. Overlay combines layers to find where conditions meet; buffer draws a zone of fixed distance around a feature.
2. Geography in daily life
Food production, distribution, consumption · Hot places and place identity · Mobility, big data and platforms
- Transport and Logistics – Transport moves people and goods by road, rail, water, air and pipeline. Each mode needs infrastructure: roads, railways, ports and airports, joined into a network. Logistics plans the whole journey of goods, from factory to warehouse to shop to home, at the lowest cost and on time. Choosing a mode is a trade-off between speed, cost, load and distance.
- Transport Technology: Moving People and Goods – Transport technology moves people and goods from place to place. Every transport system has five parts: a vehicle, a way (road, rail, sea lane, air route), terminals (stations, ports, airports), a power source and a control system. Land vehicles push on the ground using friction. Ships float because water pushes up (buoyancy). Planes fly when lift beats weight and thrust beats drag. Rockets push gas backwards and are pushed forwards. Engines turn fuel or electricity into motion; electric motors waste less energy. Safety depends on stopping distance = thinking distance + braking distance. Future transport aims to be cleaner, safer and smarter: electric and hydrogen vehicles, maglev trains, drones and self-driving cars.
3. National change and balanced development
Population and settlement change · Agriculture and globalisation · Industrial change and regional economy · Capital-region concentration and local decline
- The World Population: Distribution, Density and Growth – People are not spread evenly on Earth. Most live on fertile plains near water; few live in deserts, high mountains or icy lands. Density tells how many people live on each square km. Geographical, economic and social factors explain the pattern. The world grew slowly for thousands of years and then very fast after 1800. Population changes through births, deaths and migration. The demographic transition theory shows how birth and death rates fall as a society moves from rural farming to urban industry. Countries use family planning and health care to control growth.
- Agriculture Basics: How Farming Began, Changed and Feeds the World – Agriculture is growing crops and raising animals on purpose. It began about 10,000–12,000 years ago in several separate hearths, where people domesticated wild plants and animals; it then spread by diffusion. The Second Agricultural Revolution (about 1700–1900) brought better tools, crop rotation and machines, so fewer farmers fed more people. The Green Revolution (from the 1960s) used high-yield seeds, irrigation and fertiliser. Farming can be subsistence or commercial, intensive or extensive. The von Thünen model explains why land use forms rings around a market. Today agriculture is a global system facing challenges of sustainability, climate, land use, food security and fair roles for women.
- Economic Geography: Where Things Are Made and How They Move – Economic geography studies where people produce, trade and consume, and why. Work is grouped into sectors: primary (farming, fishing, mining), secondary (factories, building) and tertiary (shops, transport, banks, software, tourism); a quaternary sector of research and information is sometimes added. Firms choose places that cut costs and reach buyers: raw materials, energy, transport, workers, markets, government support and nature all matter. Most products are now made in global value chains, with steps spread over many places; value grows most at design, branding and sale. Multinational firms and public actors (states, regions, cities) shape these spaces. Goods move in containers and trucks, while money, data and ideas flow through cables. Production crowds into big cities (metropolises) and coasts, and places compete to attract firms. Old industrial regions restructure, sometimes shrinking and sometimes turning to new industries and services.
- Regional Development – Regional development means improving the economy and living standards of different places in a country. Investment, jobs and people tend to gather in a few big hubs, while smaller towns lose young people and services. This causes crowding, high rent and conflict in hubs and decline elsewhere. Policies like new growth centres, better roads and local jobs aim for balanced development.
4. Environment and sustainability
World-heritage natural landscapes · Land-use change and ecosystems · Natural hazards in Korea · Energy mix for power generation
- Major Landforms and How They Form – Landforms are the natural shapes of the land: mountains, volcanoes, plains, valleys, deltas, beaches and caves. Forces from inside the Earth (plate movement, volcanoes) build them up. Forces from outside (rain, rivers, waves, wind, ice) wear them down and move the pieces. People choose where to live and work according to these landforms.
- Land Use: How Communities Decide What Each Piece of Land Is For – Land use is what people do with land: homes, shops, factories, schools, roads, parks, farms and forest. The natural environment (rivers, slopes, soil, climate) sets the first limits. Then economic, social and cultural factors such as land price, jobs, transport and zoning rules shape the pattern, often in rings around the city centre. As towns grow they can sprawl outward or grow compactly upward. Changing land use changes ecosystems, so planning and conservation matter.
- Natural Hazards – A natural hazard is a natural event that can harm people and property, such as an earthquake, volcano, landslide, flood, drought or cyclone. It becomes a disaster when it hits people who are not ready. Geological hazards come from inside the Earth; meteorological (weather) hazards come from the air and water. Risk = hazard × vulnerability ÷ capacity to cope, so warning systems, strong buildings and trained people cut the damage.
5. East Asian coexistence
Geography of North Korea
- Regional Geography: How We Divide the World into Regions – A region is an area that shares one or more features, which makes it different from the areas around it. Formal (uniform) regions are alike inside, like a plain or a rice-growing belt. Functional (nodal) regions are held together by links to a centre, like a city and the villages that travel to it. Perceptual regions exist in people's minds. Region edges are usually transition zones, and regions depend on each other through flows of people, goods, water and ideas.