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The Definitions of Location

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The Definitions of Location THE DEFINITIONS OF LOCATION Naftali Kadmon* and Richard Knippers** *) Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel **) International Institute for Geoinformation and Earth Observation, Enschede, The Netherlands 1. Nominal, ordinal and quantitative are soil types, human occupations or scales of measurement professions (disregarding income or social status!) or newspapers. The second is the It may be assumed that when man first ordinal scale (from Latin ordo, order), in began not only to relate to particular which items of a set can be arranged or geographical objects in his environment but graded in a clearly-defined procession or to convey their location to others of his order, e.g. by size, intensity, value etc. -- species, he used verbal descriptions of the but not measured quantitatively. Military properties of the object in question, as well ranks, university degrees or the contestants as physically pointing out their direction in in a beauty contest are examples of items relation to the speaker. An indication of arranged on an ordinal scale, as are roads distance must have come at a later stage. graded by arteriality or rivers by their As was pointed out already in the stream order. introductory paper to this course (see Introduction to Toponymy), giving names to Finally there is the quantitative scale, on objects, whether living or inanimate, must which objects can be measured in a metric" have been one of the earliest intellectual way, i.e. with a measuring tape, activities of the human race. However, thermometer, scales, monetary system or before an object can be named it must be other measuring device: income, identified. In the case of living things, intelligence quotient (I.Q.), distance, angle, which are mobile rather than fixed to a etc. Strictly speaking, quantitative scales particular location, this usually involves can be divided into two types. Interval relating to the properties of the subject. scales have fixed units but no intrinsically Identifying immovable objects, and fixed origin; angles, which can be measured especially different objects belonging to a from any direction, are an example, as is single category of items, must involve a temperature, which, in the Centigrade, definition of location - otherwise there Fahrenheit and Kelvin scales has different would be no possibility of distinguishing zero points. On the other hand ratio scales between them. This is particularly true of are those which have a "naturally" fixed topographic features which make up zero or point of origin, three examples categories or feature classes: mountains, being length, weight and azimuth (angle of rivers, lakes, islands and many others. In direction, always measured clockwise from this lecture we shall briefly investigate how North). the location of geographical features - which are the objects of toponymy can be In this text we shall refer to both interval defined. scales and ratio scales under the single heading of quantitative scales. All measuring activities, in the widest sense, can be conducted on three main scales". The first is the nominal scale: here, 2. Defining locations on different scales each item is distinguished from all others in the set by its nature, and therefore it can be A place on Earth - or, for that matter, on a named (hence the term nominal, from Latin celestial body such as the moon or a planet - nomen, name) -- but not graded. Examples can be defined in a number of ways. Coordinates such as geographical latitude 19,2), and one in Galilee (Joshua 19,15). and longitude, or plane topographic But in South Africa there is also a coordinates such as the UTM grid, Bethlehem, namely in the Orange Free constitute a quantitative definition, as will State, and we find cities and towns named be shown in more detail in the next Bethlehem (or its derivatives, i.e. its paragraph. A named or numbered grid conversions and exonyms) in at least 1 5 square such as B-5 in a town plan forms an other countries. So the place name itself ordinal definition, because only an orderly does not supply a complete definition of the progression of map squares is provided as location, and we may have to add the name reference frame for the geographical of the country and perhaps even the district. objects, not precise measurements. Last - Secondly, a specific geographical feature but earliest in historical development - is may have more than one name. A the verbal description of location, i.e. by a Dutchman may refer to his country’s capital name. Each method has its advantages and as Den Haag; a foreigner will look up the disadvantages. As we shall demonstrate, place in his atlas and find the Hague or ’s- coordinates are precise to a point (and Gravenhage, and will be unaware that he define an error square, the size of which has, indeed hit upon the correct place. depends on the smallest unit used in the Thirdly, in this age of computers and coordinates); an ordinal grid rectangle is information technology a quantitative more comprehensive and is better definition of location is indispensable for understood by many readers, but includes geographical processing, especially in on the average many dozens or even maps. hundreds of names. Incidentally, the first disadvantage What, then, are the advantages of mentioned above in connection with names designating a geographical feature by its as locators applies also to the ordinal name? Primarily, a name is more easily definition of location by map squares: a remembered by most person than a set of single square may include more than one numbers. Secondly, in many cases some appearance of a specific toponym. This is mental connotation can be attributed to the certainly true of names such as name. Thirdly, a single name can indicate Nooitgedacht, which appears dozens and not only a small object such as a spring or a perhaps hundreds of times in South Africa. cave, but also a larger area such as a city or even an entire continent or an ocean. 3. The geographical graticule and the Fourthly and chiefly, a name can often topographic grid supply an appreciable amount of information about the location referred to, From the above it becomes clear that for a such as the type of place it is, and in many precise and unambiguous definition of cases about its cultural, political and location a quantitative method is historical background. mandatory. This is supplied by the various ,coordinate systems, with which we shall Are there any drawbacks to designating a deal in this paragraph. No proper gazetteer place only with the aid of its name, besides of geographical names is complete without the lack of precision for a point object? reference to the quantitative coordinates of Yes, there are three. Firstly, one name each name. often refers to several geographical features. Let us take the name Bethlehem. In Israel Geographical coordinates seem to be the alone there are two Bethlehems: one in most ancient quantitative method of Judea, South of Jerusalem, also called defining location, at least in western Bethlehem-Judah in the Bible (Judges culture. The earliest list of geographical names complete with quantitative locators coordinates. Such a grid is always based on is Ptolemy's Geographia of the 2nd cent. a particular cartographic projection and it AD, which records some 8000 places by has a point of origin from which the their names and their geographical coordinate values are measured. coordinates. The net of lines of latitude on the globe, also called parallels (because their planes are parallel to that of the 4. Plane rectangular coordinate systems equator), and of lines of longitude or meridians (which are half "great circles" As mentioned, geographical ( ϕ, λ) or extending from pole to pole), is called the rectangular coordinates (x, y) can be used to geographical graticule. Latitude of a place locate geographic features. Each feature with on the globe (and one should never forget geographical coordinates on the reference that all toponyms refer to places on a surface of the Earth may be transformed to spherical body) is measured north or south rectangular coordinates (x,y) representing from the equator as angles, in degrees, positions on the map plane (see figure 1). minutes and seconds. Longitude is similarly measured as an angle east or west from the prime meridian of Greenwich, Map plane England. Y pole • •P'(x,y) These measurements thus constitute a Greenwich P ( λ,ϕ) • precise quantitative system, and its degree • X of precision is limited only by the number of figures after the decimal point. ϕ λ In spite of what has been said above concerning the sphericity of the Earth. it is equator Reference surface sometimes convenient to deal with only a ( ellipsoid ) limited portion of the Earth's surface and Figure 1. Plane rectangular coordinate regard this not as curved but as a plane. systems This is what every conventional In other words, each feature may be topographic map enables one to do, and the transferred from the curved surface of the method of transferring places from the earth, approximated by a reference surface, to spherical surface of the Earth to the plane the flat plane of the map by means of a map map sheet is called a cartographic projection. projection. Since the representations of the lines of the graticule in a plane map are curved (except in the so-called cylindrical normal projections), and therefore 5. Projection systems inconvenient for measuring coordinate values from them, it is common practice to The table below gives an overview of some superimpose a plane rectangular net of commonly used projection systems, with an squares on the map, of the well-known type annotation that discusses their properties, as called cartesian coordinates or plane relevant for specific uses of these maps.
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