Chapter 1: This is Geography Flashcards
Abiotic
Composed of non-living or inorganic matter.
Absolute location
Description of a place in a way that never changes.
Acculturation
The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distinct cultural features.
Assimilation
The process by which a group’s cultural features are altered to resemble those of another group.
Atmosphere
The thin layer of gases surrounding Earth.
Behavioral geography
An approach to human geography that emphasizes the importance of understanding the psychological basis for individual human actions in space.
Biosphere
All living organisms on Earth, including plants and animals, as well as microorganisms.
Biotic
Composed of living organisms.
Cartogram
A map in which the projection and scale are distorted in order to convey the information of a variable.
Cartography
The science of making maps.
Chloropleth map
A map in which areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the measurement of the variable.
Citizen science
Scientific research by amateur scientists.
Climate
The long-term average weather condition at a particular location.
Concentration
The extent of a feature’s spread over a given area.
Connection
The relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.
Conservation
The sustainable management of a natural resource to meet human needs.
Contagious diffusion
The rapid, wide-spread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Informally known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The time in the zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude.
Cultural ecology
A geographic approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among a social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.
Culture
The body of customary beliefs, material traits, and social forms that together constitutes the distinct tradition of a group of people.
Density
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area.
Diffusion
The process by which a feature spreads from one place to another over time.
Distance decay
The diminished importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.
Distribution
The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface.
Dot distribution map
A map that depicts data that consists of discrete observations. Each dot represents a predetermined number of observations, which could be one or many.
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 sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.
Expansion diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in an additive process.
Formal (uniform) region
An area in which most people share in one or more distinctive characteristics.
Functional (nodal) region
An area organized around a node or focal point.
Geographical information science (GIScience)
Analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies.
Geographic information system (GIS)
A computer system that captures, stores, queries, and displays geographic data.
Geotagging
Identification and storage of a piece of information by its precise latitude and longitudinal coordinates.
Global Positioning System (GPS)
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and recievers.
Globalization
Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making worldwide in scope.
Graduated symbol map
A map that displays symbols that change in size according to the value of the variable.
Hearth
A place from which an innovation originates.
Hierarchical diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.
Humanistic geography
An approach to human geography that emphasizes the different ways that individuals form ideas about place and five those places symbolic meanings.
Hydrosphere
All of the water on and near Earth’s surface.
International Date Line
An arc that for the most part follows 18- degrees latitude. When the International Date Line is crossed heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When it is crossed heading west (toward Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.
Isoline map
A map that connects places of a particular value by lines.
Latitude
The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0 degrees).
Lithosphere
Earth’s crust and a potion of upper mantle directly below the crust.
Location
The position of anything on Earth’s surface.
Longitude
The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west or the prime meridian (0 degrees).
Map
A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth’s surface or a portion of it.
Map scale
The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth’s surface.
Mashup
A map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service.
Meme
Contagious diffusion through the Internet or social media.
Mental map
A representation of a portion of Earth’s surface based on what an individual knows about a place that contains personal impressions of what is in the place and where the place is located.
Meridian
An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.
Network
A chain of communication that connects places.
Nonrenewable resource
A resource that is produced in nature more slowly than it is consumed by humans.
Parallel
A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.
Participatory GIS (PGIS)
Community-based mapping, representing local knowledge and information.
Pattern
The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a particular area.
Photogrammetry
The science of taking measurements of Earth’s surface from photographs.
Place
A specific point on Earth, distinguished by a particular characteristic.
Polder
Land that the Dutch have created 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.
Poststructrualist geography
Geographic approach that examines how the powerful in a society dominate, or seek to control, less powerful groups, how the dominated groups occupy space, and confrontations that result from that domination.
Preservation
The maintenance of resources in their present condition, with as little human impact as possible.
Prime meridian
The meridian, designated as 0 degrees longitude, that passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.
Projection
A system used to transfer locations from Earth’s surface to a flat map.
Region
An area distinguished by one or more distinctive characteristics.
Relocation diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
Remote sensing
The acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or from other long distance methods.
Renewable resource
A resource that is produced in nature more rapidly than it is consumed by humans.
Resource
A substance in the environment that is useful to people, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.
Scale
The relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole.
Site
The physical character of a place.
Situation (relative location)
The location of a place relative to another place.
Space
The physical gap or interval between two objects.
Space-time compression
The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.
Spatial association
The relationship between the distribution of one feature and the distribution of another feature.
Stimulus diffusion
The spread of an underlying principle.
Sustainability
The use of Earth’s renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in ways that do not constrain resource use in the future.
Syncretism
The combining of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature.
Toponym
The name given to a portion of Earth’s surface.
Transnational corporation
A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.
Uneven development
The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.
Vernacular (perceptual) region
An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.
Volunteered geographic information (VGI)
Creation and dissemination of geographic data contributed voluntarily and for free by individuals.
Azimuthal projection
A map projection which places the North or South pole at the center of projection.
Regional scale of analysis
The information and processes that include a particular regional location.
Global scale of analysis
The information and processes that include the entire world.
National scale of analysis
The information and processes that include a particular nation or country.
Local scale of analysis
The information and processes that include a particular locality over a small unit of space.
Flows
The movement of migrants back and forth between two places.
Land use
The function and purpose of land.
Land policy documents
Policies and rules that deal with the land.
Spatial analysis
Study of entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties
Dispersal
The spacing of people within geographic population boundaries.
Landscape analysis
The defining and describing of a particular landscape.
