The capital of Finland is Helsinki. If I asked you what the capital of finland is the next day, you'd probably can't remember. Why?
Just like any other subject, Helsinki or Finland has no meaning to you. If it was more meaningful, then you'd have no problem memorizing it.If to you it is just a random word that you have to memorize, it'll make things a lot harder...
But if you break it down to Hell – Sinking, you can remember it so much easier. Hell sinking has probably more meaning to you than Helsinki... Now to associate Finland to Helsinki. You first split Finland up into Fin - Land. Now you have these four words Fin – Land – Hell – Sinking, which would form: I came upon a land with fins surrounding the land and it was hell to be stranded there because it was sinking.
In Geography, sometimes you have to remember things like the capitals of important countries and also very complicated geographical terms. For that, you use the “breaking down and associating” method which was the method we introduced to you just now.