HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

A cultural hearth is an area where new ideas and innovations spring up and spread to other parts of the world. Most of the modern cultural hearths are urban areas like New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. New ideas come from these cities and spread to other parts of the world.

The Middle East has historically been a major cultural hearth. Three major religions and a long list of inventions and developments have come from the Middle East. The wheel, the plow, the sail, our alphabet and our calendar all originated there.