The word State come from the Latin stare, to stand, and is linked to notions of stability and permanence (see “status”) or more clearly, in this usage, to the word stato used by Machiavelli to refer to the City-States of Italy. In French the word “état” appears in the modern era, but at the time […]
Polycentrism refers to a mode of organisation of space comprising units that each have different degrees of centrality. The use of the term “centre”, or the qualifier “central”, suggests an idea of concentration, weight, and/or decisional power in comparison to the rest of the entity considered. Synonymity with the words “poly-nuclear” and “multipolar” has long […]
The word continent is derived from the Latin terra continens – a continuous tract of land. The word has thus come to refer to a vast continuous surface area of the globe surrounded by oceanic masses. In a second approach, the word continent is used, in particular among island communities, to refer to what is […]
A territory is a portion of terrestrial space envisaged in its relationships with the human groups that occupy it and manage it for the purpose of meeting their needs. This notion is, in geography, neither a synonym nor a substitute for the word space. While there is of course a notion of space in territory, […]
For a single word in French and other Romance languages derived from the Latin “terra” (terre, etc), English has four, with a degree of overlap among meanings, both within English and with other languages such as French. “Earth”, often with a capital letter, generally refers to the planet, but also to the soil in its […]
A French term, ‘terrain’ (terrain / ground / field) , used in social science and in natural science to designate elements of the lithosphere (e.g., ‘sedimentary terrains’) as well as the place, and by extension the subject,of research. For numerous researchers, ‘in the field’ activity represents one of the essential dimensions of their disciplinary method. […]
In its broadest meaning, a resource is an element providing some usefulness for human societies. Traditionally in this category are energy and raw materials, but also information and human potential. A resource does not exist per se. A natural element acquires the status of a resource only at the moment when a society uses it […]
The first scientific meaning for the word energy was elaborated within the discipline of Physics, and applies to the faculty that a body has to produce mechanical work. In geography, the notion of energy is used in three main fields: In its most commonly accepted meaning today, the notion of energy is likened to a […]
The idea of anthropization applies to any intervention by human societies that has an impact on natural elements. It generally concerns the action of man considered as an environmental agent. Whereas some limit the field covered by anthropization to the idea of degradation, others (P. Pinchemel) break down human intervention into appropriation, artificialization and development […]
The notion of altitudinal zonation is used to account for the discontinuities associated with altitude in mountain areas. It has been the subject of many iconographic representations, the principal ones generally taking the form of diagram-blocks and sections. Botanists were the first to define the working mechanisms of altitudinal zonation in mountain areas. The criteria […]