Chapter 1 Flashcards
Abiotic
composed of nonliving or inorganic matter
Atmosphere
The thin layer of gases surrounding Earth
Biosphere
All living organisms on Earth, including plants and animals as well as microorganisms.
Biotic
Composed of living organisms
Cartography
The science of making maps
Climate
The long term average weather condition at a particular location
Concentration
The spread of something 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, wide spread 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 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 geography which argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities
Formal region Uniform region Homogeneous region
An area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics
Functional region
An area organized around a node or focal point
Geographic information science (GIScience)
The development and analysis of data about Earth acquire through satellite and other information technologies
Global Positioning System
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers
Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT)
The time in the time zone encompassing the prime meridian or 0 degrees longitude
Hierarchical Diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority to other persons or places. example hip hop
Hydrosphere
all the water on or near Earth’s surface
International Date Line
An arc that for the most part follows 180 degree longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line from the east (towards America), the clock moves back 24 hours or an entire day. When you go west (towards Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.
Latitude
The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator
Lithosphere
Earth’s crust and a portion of upper mantle directly below the crust
Longitude
The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian, 0 degrees.
Meridian
an arc drawn on a map between North and South poles
Parallel
A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.
polder
Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area
Possibilism
The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives
