Vernacular geography · Lablypedia

In a nutshell

Vernacular geography is the sense of place that is revealed in ordinary people's language. Current research by the Ordnance Survey is attempting to understand the landmarks, streets, open spaces, water bodies, landforms, fields, woods, and many other topological features. These commonly used descriptive terms do not necessarily use the official or current names for features; and often these concepts of places don't have clear, rigid boundaries. For example, sometimes the same name may refer to more than one feature, and sometimes people in a locality use more than one name for the same feature. When people refer to geographical regions in a vernacular form they are commonly referred to as imprecise regions. Regions can include large areas of a country such as the American Midwest, the British Midlands, the Swiss Alps, the south east of England and southern California; or smaller areas such as Silicon Valley in northern California. Commonly used descriptions of areas of cities such as a city's downtown district, New York's Upper East Side, London's square mile or the Latin Quarter of Paris can also be viewed as imprecise regions.

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Vernacular region

Beyond "vernacular geography," a "vernacular region" is a distinctive area where the inhabitants collectively consider themselves interconnected by a shared history, mutual interests, and a common identity. Such regions are "intellectual inventions" and a form of shorthand to identify things, people, and places. Vernacular regions reflect a "sense of place," but rarely coincide with established jurisdictional borders.

Examples of vernacular regions in the United States include Tidewater, also known as Hampton Roads, Siouxland, and the Tri-City area of Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles, Illinois. Another can be the American South, since it can be non-officially considered as the Confederate States of the U.S. Civil War, where the climate is warm and has limited snow, or by being below a certain latitude. Other vernacular regions include the DFW Metroplex, Southern California, the Tri-Cities of Tennessee, the Piedmont Triad, Metrolina and the Research Triangle of North Carolina, the High Desert and Inland Empire in California, the Emerald Coast and the Gold Coast of Florida, and the Twin Cities.

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Vernacular region

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