Chapter 1: Basic Concepts (Part 1)

Question 1

Agricultural density

Answer 1

The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture.

Question 2

Arithmetic density

Answer 2

The total number of people divided by the total land area.

Question 3

Base line

Answer 3

An east-west line designated under the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the United States.

Question 4

Cartography

Answer 4

The science of making maps

Question 5

Concentration

Answer 5

The spread of something over a given area

Question 6

Concentric zone model

Answer 6

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings.

Question 7

Connections

Answer 7

Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.

Question 8

Contagious diffusion

Answer 8

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population

Question 9

Cultural ecology

Answer 9

Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

Question 10

Cultural landscape

Answer 10

Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group.

Question 11

Culture

Answer 11

The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people’s distinct tradition.

Question 12

Density

Answer 12

The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area.

Question 13

Diffusion

Answer 13

The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.

Question 14

Distance decay

Answer 14

The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin

Question 15

Distribution

Answer 15

The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface.

Question 16

Environmental determinism

Answer 16

A nineteenth- and early twentieth century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.

Question 17

Expansion diffusion

Answer 17

The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.

Question 18

Formal region

Answer 18

An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics

Question 19

Functional (or nodal) region

Answer 19

An area organized around a node or focal point.

Question 20

GIS

Answer 20

A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.

Question 21

Globalization

Answer 21

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope

Question 22

Global Positioning System (GPS)

Answer 22

A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.

Question 23

Greenwich Mean Time

Answer 23

The time in that time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0° longitude

Question 24

Hearth

Answer 24

The region from which innovative ideas originate.

Question 25

Hierarchical religion

Answer 25

A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control

Question 26

International Date Line

Answer 26

An arc that for the most part follows 180° longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When you go west (toward Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.

Question 27

Land Ordinance of 1785

Answer 27

A law that divided much of the United States into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers.

Question 28

Latitude

Answer 28

The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0°).

Question 29

Location

Answer 29

The position of anything on Earth’s surface.

Question 30

Longitude

Answer 30

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°).