In geographical terminology, place refers to the physical and human characteristics of an area, be it a neighborhood, district, small town, or city. Earth's surface is by no means uniform in either physical or human characteristics. Physical differences derive from the natural processes that produce landforms, bodies of water, climate, soils, natural vegetation, and animal life. Physical geography addresses those processes.
Human geography focuses on the ideas and human actions that shape the character of places.
Places vary in their population, as well as in their settlement patterns, architecture, economic and recreational activities, communication networks, ideologies, languages, and economic, social, and political organizations. An important principle of human geography is that over the long run, societies survive and develop because of successful, or adaptive, decisions. By that we mean that people learn in place about how to live in place. People are forever manipulating their environments, changing them for many reasons. Places thus become the expressions of the individuals and groups that control them.