The concepts of time and space are very important for understanding the function of phenomena in the natural world. Time is important to Physical Geographers because the spatial patterns they study can often only be explained in historic terms. The measurement of time is not absolute . Time is perceived by humans in a relative fashion by using human created units of measurement. Examples of human created units of time are the measurement of seconds, minutes, hours, and days.
Geographers generally conceptualize two types of space .
Concrete space represents the real world or environment. Abstract space models reality in a way that distills much of the spatial information contained in the real world. Maps are an excellent example of abstract space. Finally, like time, space is also perceived by humans in a relative fashion by using human created units of measurement. Both time and space are variable in terms of scale .