Degree Year

1948

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Geography

Advisor(s)

R.B. Frost

Committee Member(s)

Irene Moke

Keywords

Land use, Geographic, Soil, Climate, Physiography, Vegetation, Culture, Economic, Political, Social institutions, Lorain County (OH)

Abstract

Geographic study aims at systematic description and interpretation of the interrelationship of organic and inorganic things on the face of the earth. The geographer analyzes land use patterns in the attempt to understand the intimate relationship existing between man and the geographic environment. The number of people that a given amount of land will support, and hence the manner in which this population uses that land, is a function of the resources of the area and the culture of the men making up the population. Basically, resources of the land are its geographic elements of soil, climate, physiography, and vegetation; by culture is implied the economic, political, and social institutions by which men govern their activities. The land use patterns resulting from the alteration of the natural environment by men, conditioned by these geographic and cultural influences, constitute part of cultural geography.

Constant effort is made toward more and more detailed description and interpretation of the landscape, which involves decreasing the size of the unit studied. The characteristics of Lorain County land use have been described briefly when use regions of North America or of the state of Ohio have been analyzed. In this thesis, Lorain County is the unit of study, subdivisions being made within the county limits.

The general land use characteristics of Lorain County are typical of most of the counties of northern Ohio which border on Lake Erie. In this respect the dominance of the influence of geographic factors is clear, for in many ways these factors are similar in the lake-border region. Cultural influences account for the minor variations.

To accomplish a detailed graphic description of Lorain County land use (the accompanying Plates) it was necessary to construct the maps from interpretation of aerial photographs. A somewhat more detailed analysis could have been made if the uses could have been mapped in the field, but the area to be covered was much too large for such procedures.

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