Scale

Articles

• Drainage Basin
  24 June 2010, by L.T.

  In the wide sense, a drainage basin is a portion of space drained towards an outlet by way of a system of slopes; in the strict sense the drainage basin is the elementary portion of space made up of a topographical feature or features enabling drainage towards an outlet. The origin of the concept of the drainage basin (bassin versant in French) can be found with P.Buache, Louis XIVth’s official geographer, in his notion of the "river basin" (bassin de fleuve). The scholars of the time (...)

• Centre/Periphery
  13 October 2004, by C.G.

  The geometrical metaphor of centre and periphery is often used to describe opposition between the two basic types of places in a spatial system : the one which is commanding and benefitting it, the centre, and those which are subjected to it, in a peripheral position. This conceptual pair goes back at least to the time of Werner Sombart (Der moderne Kapitalismus, 1902), if not of Marx (city/countryside relations), and was used by the imperialism theoreticians (Rosa Luxemburg, Boukharine) (...)

• East
  11 January 2014, by D.E.

  East is one of the cardinal points. But its usage in everyday language goes well beyond this simple, short definition. It does in fact prove to be a point that is rather more cardinal than the others. As the sun rises to the east, it has had importance in numerous symbolic universes at different times in history, from the Empire of the Rising Sun to sun worship in ancient Egypt. It is in relation to the sun that we take our bearings. The east is a fundamental direction in feng shui. The (...)