Ch.1 Basic Concepts Vocab Flashcards
Atmosphere
The thin layer of gases surrounding Earth
Abiotic
Composed of nonliving or inorganic matter
Biosphere
All living organisms on Earth, including plants and animals, as well as microorganisms
Biotic
Composed of living organisms
Cartography
The science of map making
Climate
The long-term average weather condition at a particular location
Concentration
The spread over a given area
Connection
Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space
Conservation
The sustainable management of a natural resource
Contagious Diffusion
The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population
Cultural Ecology
A geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships
Cultural Landscape
The fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group
Culture
The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group’s distinct tradition
Density
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area
Diffusion
The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time
Distance Decay
The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin
Distribution
The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface
Ecology
The scientific study of ecosystems
Ecosystem
A group of living organisms and the abiotic spheres with which they interact
Environmental Determinism
A nineteenth - and early twentieth - century approach to the study of geography which argued that the general laws daughter by human geographers could be found in the physical environment caused by human activities
Expansion Diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in an additive process
Formal Region
An area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristic
Functional Region
An area organized around a node or focal point
Geographic Information System (GIS)
A computer system thy stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data
Geographic Information Science (GIScience)
The development and analysis of data about earth acupressure through satellite and other electronic information technologies
Global Positioning System (GPS)
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers
