AP Human ALL VOCAB Flashcards
The science of mapmaking
Cartography
The study of human adaptations to social and physical landscapes
Cultural ecology
The process of capturing images of Earth’s surface from airborne platforms such as satellites or airplanes.
Remote Sensing
An integrated network of satellites that orbit Earth, broadcasting location information to handheld receivers on Earth’s surface.
GPS
A family of software programs that enables geographers to map, analyze, and model spatial data.
GIS
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainability
An intellectual framework that allows geographers to look at the Earth in terms of the relationships among various places.
Spatial Perspective
A region that is located around a node or focal point.
Functional region
A region that contains uniform physical or cultural characteristics
Formal regions
A region that doesn’t actually exist, only exists in the minds of people
Vernacular/Perceptual Region
The exact location or coordinates of a place
Absolute Location
Lines of longitude, that run North-South
Meridians
Lines of Latitude, that run East-West
Parallels
A place’s physical and cultural features
Site
Describes a place’s relationship to other places around it
Situation/Relative Location
The exact measurement between two places
Absolute distance
How economically or socially two places are connected
Relative Distance
The decline in travel time between geographical locations as a result of transportation, communication, and related technological and social innovations.
Time-Space Convergence
The farther away two places are located, the less that interact
Distance Decay
The interaction of two places is equal to the product of the places’ populations divided by the square of their distance apart
Gravity Model
The spread of an idea or characteristic over time
Diffusion
The thing that is traveling both remains in its hearth and spreads to surrounding areas
Expansion Diffusion
A type of expansion that spreads from person to person
Contagious Diffusion
A type of expansion diffusion that spreads by passing first among the most connected individuals, then spreading to other individuals
Hierarchical diffusion
When an idea spreads because people take it with them when they migrate
Relocation Diffusion
The ratio between the distance on a map and the actual distance on the Earth’s surface.
Map Scale
Maps that work well for navigating between places
Reference Map
Maps that display one or more variables across a particular area.
Thematic Map
Maps that show lines that joint points of equal value
Isoline Map
Maps that show dots to show the precise locations of specific observations or occurrences.
Dot Map
A map that uses colors or tonal shadings to represent categories of data for given geographic areas
Choropleth map
A map in which the geometry of regions is distorted in order to convey the information of an alternate variable.
Cartogram
Assimilation to a different culture, typically the dominant one.
Acculturation
The complete integration of someone of minority status into a dominant culture.
Assimilation
When objects in an area are close together.
Clustering
A group’s material characteristics, behavioral patterns, beliefs, social norms, and attitudes that are shared and transmitted.
Culture
The spacing of people within geographic population boundaries.
Dispersal
The physical environment causes people to act in predetermined ways
Environmental Determinism
Theory that says the physical environment may limit some human actions
Possibilism
A model used in population geography that describes the ages and numbers of males and females within a given population.
Age-Sex Distribution/Population Pyramid
Number of deaths per thousand children within the first five years of life
Child Mortality Rate
A sequence of demographic changes in which a country moves from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates.
Demographic Transition Model
The ratio of the number of people who are either too old or too young to provide for themselves to the number of people who must support them through their own labor.
Dependency Ratio
A prediction of the conditions of disease, healthcare, and sanitation that will determine the course of the demographic transition from high death rate and birth rate to low death rate and birth rate in a given country or region.
Epidemiological Transition
The difference between the number of births and number of deaths within a particular country.
Rate of Natural Increase (RNI)
The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.
Acculturation
Most prevalent in Africa and the Americas, doctrine in which the world is seen as being infused with spiritual and even supernatural powers.
Animism
System of belief that seeks to explain the ultimate realities for all people, such as the nature of suffering and the path toward self-realization.
Buddhism
The world’s most widespread religion. Monotheistic, universal religion that uses missionaries to expand its remembers worldwide. The three major categories are Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox
Christianity
A pidgin language that evolves to the point at which it becomes the primary language of the people who speak it.
Creole
A total way of life held in common by a group of people, including learned features such as language, ideology, behavior, technology, and government.
Culture
The systematic attempt to remove all people of a particular ethnicity from a country or region either by forced migration or genocide.
Ethnic Cleansing
An evaluation of cultures according to preconceptions of one’s own cultural standards and traditions
Ethnocentrism
A strict adherence to a particular doctrine
Fundamentalism
A cohesive and unique society, most prevalent in India, that integrates spiritual beliefs with daily practices and official institutions such as the caste system.
Hinduism
Language family containing the Germanic and Romance languages that include languages spoken by about 50% of the world’s people.
Indo-European
A monotheistic religion based on the belief that there is one God, Allah, and that Muhammad was Allah’s prophet. Islam is based in the ancient city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Muhammad
Islam
The first major monotheistic religion. It is based on a sense of ethnic identity, and its adherents tend to form tight-knit communities wherever they live
Judaism
A collection of many languages, all of which came from the same original tongue long ago, that have since evolved different characteristics.
Language Family
A set of languages with a relatively recent common origin and many similar characteristics
Language Group
Language in which all government business occurs in a country
Official Language
Language that may develop when two groups of people with different languages meet. It has some characteristics of each language.
Pidgin
Dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change.
Popular Culture
Any of the languages derived from Latin, including Italian, Spanish, French, and Romanian
Romance Languages
Language area that spreads through most of Southeast Asia and China and comprises Chinese, Burmese, Tibetan, Japanese, and Korean.
Sino-Tibetan
A boundary line established before an area is populated
Antecedent Boundary
Forces that tend to divide a country
Centrifugal Force
Forces that tend to unite or bind a country together
Centripetal Force
The delegation of legal authority from a central government to lower levels of political organization such as a state or country
Devolution
A system of government which power is distributed among certain geographical territories rather than concentrated within a central government.
Federalism
Political Boundaries that are defined and delimited by straight lines
Geometric Boundaires
Law establishing states rights and responsibilities concerning the ownership and use of the earth’s seas and oceans and their resources
Law of the Sea
Tightly knit group of individuals sharing a common language, ethnicity, religion, and other cultural attributes
Nation
A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity
Nation-State
Political boundaries that correspond with prominent physical features such as mountain ranges or rivers
Physical Boundaries
A state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main territory
Porupted State
Old political boundaries that no longer exist as international borders, but have left an enduring mark on the local cultural environmental geography
Relic Boundaries
A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by the international community.
State
A group of people with a common political identity who do not have a territorially defined, sovereign country of their own.
Stateless-Nation
A boundary line established after an area has been settled that considers the social and cultural characteristics of the area
Subsequent Boundary
Boundary line drawn in an area ignoring the existing cultural pattern.
Superimposed Boundary
A state governed constitutionally as a unit, without internal divisions or a federalist delegation of powers.
Unitary State
A set of economic and political relationships that organize food production for commercial purposes. It includes activities reaching from seed production to retailing, to consumption of agricultural products
Agribusiness
A form of technology that uses living organisms, usually genes, to modify products, to make or modify plants and animals, or to develop other microorganisms for specific purposes.
Biotechnology
A linked system of processes that gather resources, covert them into goods, package them for distribution, disperse them, and sell them on the market
Commodity Chains
People’s ability to access sufficient safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle.
Food security
Foods that are mostly products of organisms that have had their genes altered in a laboratory for specific purposes, such as disease resistance, increased productivity, or nutritional value, allowing growers greater control, predictability, and efficiency
Genetically Modified Foods
The development of higher-yield and fast-growing crops through increased technology, pesticides, and fertilizers, transferred from the developed to developing world to alleviate the problem of food supply in those regions of the globe.
Green Revolution
The rapid economic changes that occurred in agriculture and manufacturing in England in the late 18th century and that rapidly spread to other parts of the developed world.
Industrial Revolution
Type of agriculture that involves effective and efficient use of labor on small plots of land to maximize crop yield.
Intensive Agriculture
A type of agricultural activity based on nomadic animal husbandry on the raising of livestock to provide food, clothing, and shelter.
Pastoralism
A large, frequently foreign-owned piece of agricultural land devoted to the production of a single export crop.
PlantationT
The use of tropical forest clearings for crop production until their fertility is lost. Plots are then abandoned, and farmers move on to new sites.
Shifting Cultivation
Any farm economy in which most crops are grown for nearly exclusive family or local consumption
Subsistence Agriculutre
The process of urban areas expanding outward, usually in the form of suburbs, and developing over fertile agricultural land.
Urban Sprawl
A form of corporate organization in which one form controls multiple aspects or phases of a commodity chain
Vertical Integration
An agricultural model that spatially describes agricultural activity in terms of rent. Activities that require intensive cultivation and cannot be transported over great distances pay higher rent to be close to the market, Conversely, activities that are more expensive, with goods that are easy to transport, are located farther from the market where rent is less
Von Tünen Model
As early as 1900, real estate agents and developers encouraged affluent white property owners to sell their homes and businesses at a loss by stoking fears that their neighborhoods were being overtaken why racial or ethnic minorities
Blockbusting
A large, rapidly growing city that is suburban in character but resembles population totals of large urban cores
Boomburb
The downtown or nucleus of a city where retail stores, offices, and cultural activities are concentrated; building deities are usually quite high; and transportation systems converge
Central Business District
A theory formulated in the early 1900s that explains the size and distribution of cities in terms of a competitive supply of goods and services to dispersed populations.
Walter Christaller’s Central Place Theory
A model that describes an urban environment as a series of rings and distinct land uses radiation out from a central core or central business district.
Concentric-Zone Model
Cities that are located on the outskirts of larger cities and serve many of the same functions as urban areas, but in a sprawling, decentralized suburban environment
Edge Cities
A circular model that characterizes the role of the automobile in the post-industrial era.
Galactic City Model
The trend of middle and upper-income Americans moving into city centers and rehabilitating much of the architecture but also replacing low-income populations, and changing the social character of certain neighborhoods.
Gentrification
An urban area that has a population over 10 million people
Megacity
An urban area that has a population over 20 million people
Metacity
Type of urban form wiherein cities have numerous centers of business and cultural activity instead of one central place.
Multiple-Nuclei Model
A movement of urban planning to promote mixed-use commercial and residential development and pedestrian-friendly, community-oriented cities.
New Urbanism
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A country’s leading city, with a population that is disproportionately larger than other urban areas within the same country.
Primate City
Rule that states that the population of any given town should be inversely proportional to its rank in the country’s hierarchy when the distribution of cities according to their sizes follows a certain pattern,
Rank-Size Rule
A model of urban land use that places the central business district in the middle, with wedge-shaped sectors radiating outward from the center along transportation corridors.
Sector Model
Residential developments characterized by extreme poverty that usually exist on land just outside of cities that is neither owned nor rented by its occupants.
Squatter Settlements
Residential communities, located outside of city centers, that are usually relatively homogeneous in terms of population.
Suburbs
Centers of economic, cultural, and political activity that are strongly interconnected and together control the global systems of finance and commerce.
World Cities
Cultural traditions that are done at a local level and which are derived from longstanding cultural practices
Folk Culture
Grouping together of many firms from the same industry in a single area for collective or cooperative use of infrastructure and sharing of labor resources.
Agglomeration
A location where large shipments of goods are broken up into smaller containers for delivery to local markets.
Break-of-Bulk Point
Industries whose products weigh more after assembly than they did previously and whose processing facilities tend to be located close to their markets
Bulk-Gaining Industries
Industries whose products weigh less after assembly than they did previously and whose processing facilities tend to be located close to the source of raw materials.
Bulk-Reducing Industries
A model of the spatial structure of development in which under developed countries are defined by their dependence on a developed core region.
Core-Periphery Model
An industry in which the production of goods and services is based in homes, as opposed to factories
Cottage Industry
The dispersal of an industry that formerly existed in an established agglomeration.
Deglomeration
Loss of industrial activity in a region
Deindustrialization
Area where governments create favorable investment and trading conditions to attract export-oriented industries.
Export=Processing Zone
Manufacturing activities in which the cost of transportation of raw materials and finished products is not important for determining the location of the industry.
Footloose Industry
A form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly.
Fordist Production
The total value of goods and services produced within the borders of a country during a specific time period, usually one year.
Gross Domestic Product
The total value of goods and services, including income received from abroad, produced by the residents of a country within a specific time period, usually one year.
Gross National Product
A measure used by the United Nations that calculates development not in terms of money or productivity but in terms of human welfare. The HDI evaluates human welfare based on three parameters: life expectancy, education, and income
Human Development Index
A concept to describe the optimal location of a manufacturing establishment in relation to the costs of transport and labor, and relative advantages of agglomeration or deglomeration
Alfred Weber’s Least-Cost Theory
Cities where US firms have factories just outside the United States-Mexican border in areas that have been specially designated by the Mexican government. In such areas, factors cheaply assemble goods for export back into the United States.
Maquiladora
A small provision of loans to poorer people, typically women, encourages the development of small businesses that are often community-oriented.
Microfinance
Sending industrial processes out for external production. The term outsourcing increasing applies not only to traditional industrial functions but also to the contradicting of service industry functions to companies to overseas locations where operating costs remain relatively low.
Outsourcing
Economic activities in which natural resources are made available for use or further processing, including mining, agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Primary Economic Activities
A monetary measurement of development that takes into account what money buys in different countries
Purchasing-Power Parity
Economic activities concerned with research, information gathering, and administration
Quaternary Economic Activities
The most advanced form of quarternary activities consisting of high-level decision-making for large corporations or high-level scientific research.
Quinary Economic Activities
A model of economic development that describes a country’s progression, which occurs in five stages, transforming then from least developed to most developed.
Rostow’s Stages of Development
Economic activities concerned with the processing of raw materials, such as manufacturing, construction, and power generation.
Secondary Economic Activities
Activities that provide the market exchange of goods and that bring together consumers and providers of services, such as retail, transportation, government, personal, and professional services.
Tertiary Economic Activities
A group of cities that form an interconnected, internationally dominant system of global control of finance and commerce
World Cities
Theory that explains the emergence of a core, periphery, and semiperiphery in terms of economic and political connections first established at the beginning of exploration in the late 15th century and maintained through increased economic access up until the present.
Wallerstien’s World Systems Theory
