Absolute Location in AP Human Geography

Writing a coordinate pair correctly

A full absolute location gives latitude first (degrees north or south of the equator), then longitude (degrees east or west of the prime meridian). New Orleans sits at roughly 30°N, 90°W, and New York City at roughly 40°N, 74°W.

The hemisphere letters matter. "30, 90" without N/S and E/W could point to four different spots on the globe. At a local scale, a precise street address also works as an absolute location because it identifies one spot and no other.

This term comes from Topic 1.4, Spatial Concepts, in Unit 1: Thinking Geographically. There the course asks you to define the major ideas geographers use to show how things relate across space: absolute and relative location, space, place, flows, distance decay, time-space compression, and pattern. Absolute location is the fixed reference point that the others build on. GPS and GIS work from coordinates for the same reason.

Telling absolute and relative location apart

Ask whether the description needs another place to make sense. If it does, it's relative location. If it stands alone on the global grid, it's absolute.

"40°N, 74°W" is absolute. "Across the Hudson River from New Jersey" and "about five hours by plane from Los Angeles" are relative, because each one depends on somewhere else.

The usual mix-up comes from statements that contain a number. "250 miles from Chicago" sounds exact, but it's still relative because it's measured from Chicago. Relative location can also change when a new highway, canal, or airline route opens. A place's coordinates never move.

Site means more than coordinates in Topic 6.1

The same idea comes back in Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use, Topic 6.1, The Origin and Influences of Urbanization. There, a city's site and situation shape how it began, what jobs it does, and how it grows.

Site connects to absolute location because it describes the physical spot a city occupies. A strong answer names the actual features, though. New Orleans' site is low, flat land along the Mississippi near its mouth, with parts of the city below sea level. Writing "its site is 30°N, 90°W" gives coordinates without explaining anything.

Situation is relative location applied to cities. New Orleans' situation links the river system of the U.S. interior to the Gulf of Mexico, which explains its growth as a port. Topic 6.1 stresses that changes in transportation and communication reshape urbanization. Those changes can improve or weaken a city's situation, but its absolute location stays put.

Why social ties count as relative location

Consider a case where Syrian refugees resettle in cities with established Syrian communities instead of closer cities with more jobs. Sorting this out means deciding whether absolute or relative location explains the choice.

The absolute locations of all these cities are fixed and explain nothing about the decision. What draws people is relative location in a social sense: the cities' connections to family, language, and community support networks. Physical closeness is a relative-location factor, and job openings are an economic pull factor. Here both lose out to those social ties.

The trap is the word "nearer." Nearness is always measured from somewhere else, so it's relative location, even though it sounds like a statement about exact position.

Building a city-growth answer for Question 2 or 3

A map stimulus with a latitude-longitude grid can ask you to read off a coordinate pair, and a short written statement can ask whether it describes absolute or relative location. These are two ways absolute location could appear in stimulus-based multiple-choice questions.

In the free-response section, Question 2 (one stimulus) and Question 3 (two stimuli) can hand you a map of a city and ask why it grew. A strong response moves in this order:

• Locate the city precisely, using coordinates if the map gives them.
• Describe one site feature, such as a harbor, river crossing, or flat land.
• Explain the situation, meaning the city's connections to trade routes, resources, or other cities.
• Explain how a change in transportation or communication shifted that situation.

A Unit 1 term like this one can support a Unit 6 argument. Using absolute location only to pin a city down, then switching to site and situation to explain growth, shows you know what each concept can and can't explain.