Geographic Factors

Geographical features are the components of the Earth. There are two types of geographical features, namely natural geographical features and artificial geographical features. Natural geographical features include but are not limited to landforms and ecosystems. For example, terrain types, bodies of water, natural units (consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment) are natural geographical features. What makes them geographical features is that they are located A biome is a geographically defined area of ecologically similar communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, often referred to as ecosystems.

Biomes are defined based on factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and needleleaf), plant spacing (forest, woodland, savanna), and climate. Unlike ecozonse, biomes are not defined by genetic, taxonomic, or historical similarities. Biomes are often identified with particular patterns of ecological succession and climax vegetation.

Main article: Landform A landform comprises a geomorphological unit, and is largely defined by its surface form and location in the landscape, as part of the terrain, and as such, is typically an element of topography. Landforms are categorised by features such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure, and soil type. They include berms, mounds, hills, cliffs, valleys, rivers and numerous other elements. Oceans and continents are the highest-order landforms.

A body of water is any significant accumulation of water, usually covering the Earth. The term body of water most often refers to large accumulations of water, such as oceans, seas, and lakes, but it may also include smaller pools of water such as ponds, puddles or wetlands. Rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are not always considered “bodies” of water, but are included here as geographical formations featuring water. Artificial geographical features edit]Settlements Main article: Human settlement A settlement is a permanent or temporary community in which people live.

A settlement can range in size from a small number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. The medieval settlement research group (a British organisation)includes as part of a settlement, associated features such as roads, enclosures, field systems, boundary banks and ditches, ponds, parks and woods, mills, manor houses, moats and churches. Engineered constructs Main articles: Construction engineering, Building, and Nonbuilding structure See also: Infrastructure Engineered geographic features such as highways, bridges, airports, railroads, buildings, dams, and reservoirs, which are part of the anthroposphere because they are man-made, are artificial geographic features.

Cartographical features are a type of abstract geographical feature – they appear on maps but not on the planet itself, even though they are located on the planet. For example, you can see the Equator on maps, but if you were actually standing on the Equator you wouldn’t be able to see it, because it is an entirely theoretical line used for reference, navigation, and measurement.