“The Friction of Distance” is part of Tobler’s First Law of Geography. Tobler’s First Law of Geography states “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” This essentially means that as the distance between two places increases the interaction between those two places decreases. To provide a personal example, imagine you are a fan of a football team from New York, but you live in Texas. You might not go to New York to watch your team play, but if they were playing in Dallas you would be more likely to make the trip. This theory can be applied to all sorts of cultural, physical, and economic interactions; however, it has many significant exceptions, particularly with the advent of modern technology.

Waldo Tobler is a famous American geographer of the twentieth century. He is most famous for his so-called “First Law of Geography” which states that “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than far things.”

Cartography is the science of making maps. While historically this involved exploring the land to map and then drawing maps by hand, technology has greatly improved this process. Today, cartographers are trained in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and produce maps through computer programs. Data is collected mostly by satellite imaging but also some by field research. 

The etymology of the term Cartography comes from French and Greek.  The first half of the word, "carto" comes from the French word for map, "carte". Graph comes from the Greek word "graphein"  meaning to write or to draw.  Combining these two words thus signifies the writing or drawing of maps.  The "y" at the end of the word signifies that it is the scientific study or skill of this specialty.

Possibilism, as originally defined by Strabo, is theory of geography that states that, within environmental constraints, humans determine their own culture. IT is in opposition to the idea of environmental determinism.

An isthmus is, in other words, a land bridge. Functioning as a bridge, this thinner landmass connects two others. A great example is Central America, which is a narrower part of the American continent that connects North and South America together.

From this list, Austria is the only landlocked state. To be landlocked, a country or state cannot have access to any major bodies of water. 

Many areas of the world have several dialects or languages within a very small geographic location; however, all of the different people groups may be united by or able to communicate through one same common language, often referred to as the lingua franca of the area.

Lusitania refers back to the era that Europe was colonizing many parts of the part and Portugal's section was called Lusitania. One of the countries that Portugal colonized was Brazil.

Natural resources are any item from the environment that has value to it, typically something humanity can utilize either directly or indirectly.

For a state or country to be landlocked, it would have no direct access to a major body of water. In the United States, many of the Midwestern states are considered landlocked. One such example is Kansas.