Lesson 1.7 · Unit 1 · Thinking spatially
Absolute and relative location, and why relative location changes
There are two ways to say where something is, and they behave completely differently. One is fixed and precise and explains almost nothing. The other is vague, changeable, and does most of the explanatory work in the subject.
- Absolute location is a fixed coordinate: latitude and longitude, a street address, or a grid reference. It identifies a point uniquely and does not change.
- Relative location describes a place in terms of others: near a port, on a trade route, between two capitals. It explains, and it changes.
- Latitude measures north and south from the equator to ninety degrees at each pole; longitude measures east and west from the prime meridian to a hundred and eighty degrees.
- Longitude is arbitrary in a way latitude is not. The equator is fixed by the earth's rotation; the prime meridian was fixed by agreement at Greenwich in 1884.
- Time zones follow from longitude, with the earth turning fifteen degrees an hour, which is why the time zone map is a political map rather than a mathematical one.
- Toponyms, or place names, record who named a place and are frequently contested, because renaming asserts a claim.
- Relative location changes without anything moving, through new transport, new borders, new neighbors or new technology, which is why it explains change over time.
Where students lose marks: giving absolute location when asked to explain. Coordinates identify; they do not account for anything. An explanation almost always requires relative location.
The case. Singapore, whose absolute location has not changed since the island formed and whose relative location has changed repeatedly.
Step one: state the absolute location. Roughly one degree north of the equator, one hundred and four degrees east. That has been true throughout recorded history and predicts nothing.
Step two: state the relative location. At the southern end of the Strait of Malacca, the shortest sea route between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. That is also geographically fixed, and its value is not.
Step three: identify what changes the value of that position. The volume of trade passing through the strait. If little moves between the Indian and Pacific oceans, the position is worth nothing. If most of the world's east-west trade moves that way, it is worth a great deal.
Step four: apply the first change. European trade with East Asia expanded enormously through the nineteenth century, and a deep-water harbor at the strait's narrowest approach became valuable. The harbor had always been there; the traffic had not.
Step five: apply the second change. The Suez Canal opened in 1869, shortening the Europe to Asia route and increasing the traffic using it. Singapore's relative location improved because of a canal six thousand kilometers away.
Step six: apply the third change. Containerization from the 1960s made transshipment hubs enormously valuable, and a port that could handle containers where routes converged gained again. The change was in technology, not in geography.
Step seven: identify what could reverse it. A canal through the Kra Isthmus, or Arctic routes opening as ice retreats, would let traffic bypass the strait. Singapore's coordinates would be unchanged and its relative location would deteriorate sharply.
Step eight: state the general principle. Absolute location tells you where to find a place. Relative location tells you what the place is worth, and it is determined by events elsewhere. Every question in this course that asks why a place matters is a question about relative location.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- Define absolute location.
Show the full solution
A fixed coordinate such as latitude and longitude or a street address
- Define relative location.
Show the full solution
A place's position described in terms of other places
- What do latitude and longitude measure?
Show the full solution
Latitude measures north and south from the equator; longitude east and west from the prime meridian
- Why is the prime meridian arbitrary in a way the equator is not?
Show the full solution
The equator is fixed by the earth's rotation; the prime meridian was agreed at Greenwich in 1884
- How many degrees of longitude does the earth turn in an hour?
Show the full solution
Fifteen
- Why does absolute location explain so little?
Show the full solution
Because it identifies a point and says nothing about what surrounds it. Knowing that a place sits at one degree north and a hundred and four degrees east allows you to find it on a map and predicts nothing about whether it will be wealthy, populous or strategically important. Those depend entirely on what else is nearby and on what is moving through, which is relative location. It identifies a point without describing anything around it
- Trace how Singapore's relative location improved three times without moving.
Show the full solution
First, European trade with East Asia expanded through the nineteenth century, which raised the value of a deep-water harbor at the narrowest approach to the Strait of Malacca. Second, the Suez Canal opened in 1869, shortening the Europe to Asia route and increasing traffic using the strait. Third, containerization from the 1960s made transshipment hubs valuable where routes converge. Traffic, a distant canal and a technology, none of them local. Expanding Asian trade, the Suez Canal, and containerization
- What could reverse Singapore's position, and why is that instructive?
Show the full solution
A canal cut through the Kra Isthmus, or Arctic shipping routes opening as sea ice retreats, would let east-west traffic bypass the Strait of Malacca entirely. Its coordinates would be identical and its relative location would deteriorate sharply. It is instructive because it shows that an advantage derived from position is held at the discretion of events elsewhere and can be removed without anything happening locally. A rival route would destroy the advantage without changing the place at all
- Why is the time zone map political rather than mathematical?
Show the full solution
Because the earth turning fifteen degrees an hour implies neat meridian-bounded strips, and the actual map is nothing like that. Zone boundaries bend around national and provincial borders because countries prefer a single internal time, some use half-hour or quarter-hour offsets, and China spans several theoretical zones on one clock. The mathematics sets the framework and governments decide what to do with it. Governments bend the boundaries for administrative convenience
- Why are place names frequently contested?
Show the full solution
Because naming asserts a claim. A toponym records who was in a position to name the place, so a name imposed by a colonial administration carries that history in everyday use, and changing it asserts that the earlier authority is no longer recognized. Disputes over whether a body of water or a city carries one name or another are rarely about the word; they are about whose claim the word acknowledges. A name records who had the power to assign it, so renaming asserts a claim