지역은 기능, 동질지역, 그렇다면 미국 지리책에서 말하는 지역의 종류는?

지리교과서 맨 앞장에는 지역의 종류에 대해서 다룬다.

왜냐하면 지리는 지역의 특성을 밝히는 것이 그 목표이기 때문에

지리의 연구 대상인 지역에 대한 정의를 꼭 내려야 한다.

Geographic Regions This map

illustrates three different kinds of geographic regions: vernacular, formal, and functional. 

A vernacular region is an abstraction that has indistinct cognitive borders,
as shown by the general outline of what the public considers to be Silicon Valley.
Other vernacular regions would be “the Midwest,” “the Deep South,” and “the Pacific Northwest.”

 In contrast, formal regions have distinct boundaries, such as that for the Santa Clara Valley,
defined as the lowland between two bordering mountain ranges. 

A functional region is based on a certain activity or organizational structure, such as the civic government of San Jose,
bounded by its legal city limits.

"Globalization and Diversity - Geography of a Changing World(4th) (2014)" - 14page

위는 실리콘 밸리를 예시를 들어 설명한 내용이였습니다.

교재의 본문에서는 이렇게 설명하고 있습니다.

The human intellect seems driven to make sense of the universe by lumping phenomena together into categories that emphasize similarities. 

Biology has its taxa of living organisms, history marks off eras and periods of time, and geology classifies epochs of Earth history.

Geography, too, organizes information about the world, by compressing it into units of spatial similarity called regions.

Sometimes the unifying threads of a region are physical, such as climate and vegetation, resulting in a regional designation like the Sahara Desert or the Amazonian rain forest. Other times the threads are more complex, combining economic and cultural traits, as in the use of the term Corn Belt for parts of the central United States. People commonly compress large amounts of information into stereotypes, and in a way geographic regions are just that—a spatial stereotype for a portion of Earth that has some special signature or characteristic that sets it apart from other places.

Geographers designate three types of regions: formal, functional, and vernacular (Figure 1.15). Formal regions take their name from the fact that these regions are defined by some aspect of physical form, such as a mountain range, valley, or climate. Cultural features can also be used to define formal regions. An example is the area where a certain language is spoken or a specific religion dominates.

Many of the maps in this book denote formal regions. In contrast, a functional region is where a certain activity (or cluster of activities) takes place. The earlier example of America’s Corn Belt fits this terminology because it forms a region where a specific economic activity dominates. The Bos–Wash (Boston to Washington, DC) megalopolis of the eastern United States is another example, as are newspaper circulation areas and the spatial dimension of a sports team’s fan base (think of the line somewhere in the Midwest between Chicago and St. Louis that divides baseball and football fans of each city). Last, vernacular regions are defined solely in people’s minds as spatial stereotypes that have no visible boundaries in the physical landscape. Examples abound: the South, the Midwest, southern California, New England, and so on

Figure 1.4 "World Regional Geography (2007)" - 5page

Definitions of a vernacular region, the American South.

Purple shading represents three state-based delineations;
colored lines delimit various religious, linguistic, and cultural “Souths.”
These are just a few of the many different interpretations of the region.

Vernacular region은 우리 말로는 뭐라 하는 거죠?

그냥 마음속 지역 같은 것이니 '심상지역'이거 어떤가요?

'심상지역'이라 칭하면 너무 imaginary한가?

그러면 '토착 심상지역' 혹은 '풍토지역'? ㅎㅎㅎ

사실, 우리나라 관동은 철령 너머 동쪽

영동은 대관령 너머 동쪽 

뭐 이런 것이라지만

뚜렷한 경계가 있는 것도 아니고

100이면 100 다 다르게 생각할테니

이것이 Vernacular region이 아닐까요?

Perceptual (vernacular or popular) regions of North America. 

Source: Wilbur Zelinsky, “North America's Vernacular Regions” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Vol. 70, Figure l, p. 14, 1980. Redrawn with permission.

출처 : Introduction to Geography by Arthur Getis (14th) (2014) - 15page

Vernacular region을 네이버에서 검색해보니, 

검색결과가 딱 한개 나옵니다.

지명의 지리학 (한국문화역사지리학회 지음)중 '지명과 역사' 86page의 주석 中에서

이 글에서 사용된 "지역(region)"이라는 개념은 흔히 지리학에서 분류되어 사용하는 등질지역(homogeneous region)과 기능지역(functional region)중 문화역사지리학과 긴밀한 관계를 갖는 등질지역과 흡사하다. 특히 이 글에서 '지역'이라함은 '지명 언중(言衆)에 의해 명명된 지명이 자연스럽게 통용되는 일정한 지칭 범위'를 말하는 것으로, 이 정의에는 지역 주민(지명 언중)들의 자연스러운 인식과 사용이 전제가 되어야 한다. 이렇게 볼때 이 글에서 사용된 '지역'이라는 개념은 지역 주민들의 인식을 바탕으로 설정된 토착지역, 풍토적 문화지역(vernacular region)과도 상통하는 바가 있다...후략~

#Vernacular #Perceptual #기능지역 #등질지역 #심상지역