How can the environment you live in affect your lifestyle (culture, architecture, etc.)?

Culture is greatly affected by environment. As Rolland B. Dixon said in his book The Building of Cultures, "Culture leans most heavily upon environment" (Dixon 12). The three parts of environment that affect culture are, as stated by Dixon, "topography, climate, and raw materials" and that "One component may tend to influence culture in one direction of development, another in another" (Dixon 13). This means that each of these components of environment changes culture in it's own way.  

         Climate is a huge factor in different cultures. If a group of people live in a cold place, they will most likely wear thicker clothes, opposed to the thin clothes worn by people in warmer places. Also, the climate affects crops that can be grown, animals living in an area, what houses look like, and so on ("How Climates Affects Our Lives").

         Topography affects culture also. For example, people living near lakes will be more into trading and fishing than people living in prairie, who will be more dependent on farming and hunting. Second, if people live on flat land they'll most likely grow crops, whereas in mountainous regions the people in the area will be more reliant on hunting ("Mountainous Cultures"). Lastly, topography affects housing; in some countries, such as Indonesia, the people there build houses on stilts to avoid the marshes and flooding ("What is a Stilt House?").

         Lastly, raw materials affect cultures. If an area is full of trees, people are more likely to build houses out of wood, rather than stone or concrete (Rolland B. Dixon). For example, as stated in the book The Building of Cultures, since Eskimos were "Destitute of wood or bark from which to construct boats or canoes, they developed the remarkably efficient and ingenious skin-covered kayak and open umiak" (Dixon 51). This shows that since the Eskimos did not have trees where they lived, they came up with other ways of building boats. This eventually changed how people boated and boat building jobs, which affected the culture of the Eskimos. Depending on the raw materials in an area the jobs, food, and specialties change.

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