Try this on your friends. Ask them how high does an elevated area of ground
have to be above its surroundings to be a mountain. Probably a bit more than 10
metres, but not as high as 5,000 meters. So what about 150 metres, 300
meters, 600 metres? Is it a cultural thing (maybe the Dutch regard as mountains what
a Nepalese barely sees as hills) - I remember some years ago some Dutch
coming from Harwich to London on the train to London, late afternoon, in order to
get a night train up to Scotland. They were quite impressed by the hills of
eastern Essex - love to have seen their faces on waking up in the Grampians. In
Denmark they have, as the highest point, the Skov Hoj, or sky mountain, all of
170 metres above sea level.
Or what about slope? Is a three hundred metre high eminence with a 30 degree
slope more of a mountain than a thousand metre eminence with 5 degree sides?
The same logic applies to deserts, or seas, for instance. How big does a
desert, or a sea, have to be to count as such. 1 square kilometer of sand? Twenty?
Five hundred?
Most people wouldn't count a 2 square kilometre area of sand a desert, if
surrounded by more fertile areas, but many would if it was surrounded by sea - a
desert island? Why does what surrounds a desert alter our perception of how
big it has to be? What of a 2 sq kilometre desert island with a 20 hectare town
on it?
I havent seen much on the geog literature about this, but a straw poll of
friends suggests we use such terms in everyday speech without really thinking
what we mean by such. Especially if we're going to be using precise tools like
GIS mapping, maybe we should have some idea of what therse things actually are.
Or is geography forever condenmed to be an imprecise science?
Hillary Shaw, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT
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