What is culture?
Culture is the shared way of life of a group: what people believe, how they speak, eat, dress, build and celebrate. It is learned, not born with us.
- Cultural traits: single parts such as a language, a dish or a festival.
- Folk culture: traditional, local, slow to change (a village craft or dance).
- Popular culture: widespread, fast-changing, spread by media (films, fashion, music apps).
- Ethnicity: a group's shared ancestry and traditions. Religion and language are two of the strongest markers of culture.
Cultural landscapes and culture regions
A cultural landscape is land changed by people: terraced fields, temples, mosques and churches, street plans, house styles, signboards in a local script. You can "read" a culture from its landscape.
A culture region is an area where people share many traits. Geographers often describe large culture realms (or civilisations), for example the East Asian, South Asian, Islamic or Latin American realms. Edges between regions are gradual zones, not sharp lines.
Religion, architecture, food and art are the most visible parts: a pagoda, a stepwell, a minaret or a wooden church each tell you about the people who built them.
Environment and culture: climate, dry lands and the sea
The natural environment influences, but does not fully decide, how people live (this balanced view is called possibilism).
- Cold lands: thick walls, steep roofs to shed snow, warm layered clothing, food from animals and fish.
- Dry lands: thick mud or stone walls and small windows keep heat out; flat roofs; loose, long clothes; nomadic herding, oases and date palms; water is shared carefully.
- Hot, wet lands: houses on stilts with open sides for air and flood safety; rice farming; light cotton clothes.
- Coasts (maritime culture): fishing, shipbuilding, ports and trade; seafood in the diet; festivals for the sea or the monsoon, such as boat races.
Food and festivals often follow the harvest: rice festivals in monsoon Asia, grape harvests in the Mediterranean.
Cultural diffusion: types, causes and effects
A cultural hearth is where a trait begins. Diffusion is how it spreads.
- Relocation diffusion: people move and carry their culture (migrants taking their language abroad).
- Expansion diffusion: the idea spreads while people stay. Three kinds:
- Contagious: neighbour to neighbour, like a viral video.
- Hierarchical: from important people or big cities down (a fashion that starts in capitals).
- Stimulus: the idea spreads but is changed (a vegetarian burger in India).
Historical causes: trade routes, empires, missionaries, colonialism and forced migration. Today's causes: the internet, media, cheap travel, migration and global companies.
Religions spread both ways: universalising faiths such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam sought converts and travelled along trade routes, while ethnic faiths mostly stay with one group. Languages such as English, Spanish and Arabic spread through empire and trade; a lingua franca is a shared language between groups.
Effects: acculturation (taking on some new traits), assimilation (losing the old culture), syncretism (blending into something new) and globalisation, which can make places more alike but also makes people protect local traditions.
Key formulas and definitions
- Culture traits: language, religion, food, clothing, buildings, art, festivals
- Cultural landscape = natural land + human changes
- Relocation diffusion: people move · Expansion diffusion: idea spreads
- Expansion: contagious (neighbours) · hierarchical (top-down) · stimulus (idea changed)
- Effects: acculturation, assimilation, syncretism, globalisation
Worked examples
1. Name the diffusion type: a dance craze spreads through a school as students copy their friends.
Contagious expansion diffusion: it spreads person to person nearby, and the people do not move.
2. Name the diffusion type: families from Kerala move to the Gulf and open restaurants serving appam.
Relocation diffusion: the people carried the food with them.
3. Why do desert houses often have thick walls and small windows?
Thick mud or stone walls absorb heat in the day and release it at night, and small windows keep out hot sun and dust.
4. A fast-food chain sells a paneer burger in India. Which idea does this show?
Stimulus diffusion (the burger idea arrived but was changed to suit local taste), also a kind of syncretism.
5. Read this landscape: terraced hills, a Buddhist monastery and prayer flags. What can you say about the culture?
People farm steep slopes by building terraces, Buddhism is an important religion, and religious symbols are part of daily life.
Common mistakes
- Thinking climate decides culture completely. Climate influences choices, but people use technology and make their own choices (possibilism).
- Mixing up relocation and expansion: in relocation the PEOPLE move; in expansion only the IDEA moves.
- Drawing sharp lines around culture regions. Regions blend into each other gradually.
- Thinking assimilation and acculturation are the same. Acculturation adds new traits; assimilation means the old culture is mostly lost.