GEO 102 - Unit 2

Question 1

Guianas (two countries and one territory)

Answer 1

o Guyana
o Suriname
o French Guiana

Question 2

Islands part of the Greater Antilles

Answer 2

o Cuba
o Hispanola
o Jamaica
o Puerto Rico

Question 3

Lesser Antilles Plate Tectonics and Formation

Answer 3

o Small islands from Virgin Islands to Trinidad
o Formed as a volcanic island along the subduction zone (volcanic eruption)

Question 4

Orographic Percipitation Patterns (windward vs leeward)

Answer 4

o Windward: wet conditions (cooler)
o Leeward: dry conditions (warmer)
o Found on mountains or hills

Question 5

Caribbean Population Distribution

Answer 5

o About 45 million
o 85% live in Greater Antilles
o Hispaniola is the most populous

Question 6

Creolization

Answer 6

o The blending of African, EU and Amerindian culture
o Creole language: merging of language (ex: Haitian Creole)
o Syncretic religion: blending of different religions (ex: Santeria in Cuba or Voodoo in Haiti)

Question 7

Maroon Societies

Answer 7

o Communities of runaway slaves
o Remains intact
o Preserved African Tradition
o Suriname and Jamaica
o EX: farming, language, music, housing, social organization

Question 8

How did the USA attain Puerto Rico?

Answer 8

Spanish-American War

Question 9

Features of the Great Rift Valley Region

Answer 9

o Divergent plate boundary zone where African’s plate is slowly splitting
o Features
o E African highland
o Elongated lakes
o Volcanic mountains
o Steep slopes (escarpments)

Question 10

Tropical Savanna Climate Characteristics (ex: Tanzania and Zambia)

Answer 10

o Climate: wet and dry
o Very warm/hot all year
o Rainy in “High Sun” season
o Low precipitation

Question 11

The Sahel and Desertification

Answer 11

Desertification: the spread of desert conditions in semi-arid land
o The Sahel: “Shore” in Arabic
o Semiarid transition zone between Sahara and the savannas
o Prone to drought
o Food insecurity
o Loss of income

Question 12

Sub-Sahran Africa High TFR Factors

Answer 12

o More people involved in agriculture
o Children provide labor
o Grown children care for elders
o Low states and education of women
o High IMR
o Little contraceptives
o Early marriages

Question 13

Region in Sub-Saharan Africa with the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rates

Answer 13

South Africa (70%)

Question 14

Swahili

Answer 14

o Lingua Franca: mutually understood by people with different native languages
o Widely spoken and common

Question 15

Shifting Cultivation

Answer 15

o Swidden: common on poorer tropical soils
o Natural vegetation is burned for crops to be planted
o Crop plots left to FALLOW (unseeded) to restore fertility

Question 16

World’s top two cocoa-producing countries

Answer 16

o Ivory Coast
o Ghana

Question 17

Cattle pastoralism and tsetse flies

Answer 17

o Redial on livestock for livelihood
o N: Camel and Goat
o S: Cattle
o Tsetse flies: cause sleeping sickness and infection in humans and cattle

Question 18

Country that leads the world in platinum production

Answer 18

South Africa

Question 19

The Berlin Conference and political boundaries in Africa

Answer 19

o Berlin Conference (1884)
o Africa parted into European colonial territories
o No regard for indigenous cultural and political boundaries
o Difficulty in establishing a national identity

Question 20

Civil War in the DR of the Congo

Answer 20

o Africa’s first major war
o More than 5 million people died
o Corrupt ruler was overthrown in 1997
o Deadliest conflict since WW ii

Question 21

The split between Sudan and South Sudan

Answer 21

o Post-colonial history: N-S Civil War
o N: Arab-Muslims
o S: Non-Arab Christians and Animists
o Republic of South Sudan formed July, 2011

Question 22

Darfur

Answer 22

o A region in West Sudan
o Many lives have been lost bc of…
o drought
o desertification
o ethnic rivalries
o Massive population growth

Question 23

Plate tectonics and the formation of the Red Sea

Answer 23

o Arabian Plate diverging from African Plate
o Read Sea began as a rift valley that widened into a sea (formed because of the split)

Question 24

Salinization

Answer 24

o Increase of salt in soil
o Cause: irrigation
o Accumulation of salts in topsoil prevents the growth of crops/plants

Question 25

Southeast Anatolia Project and its impacts on Syria and Iraq

Answer 25

o Turkey
o Economic and environmental development project (dams on Tigris and Euphrates)
o Goal: to address Kurdish insurgency in SE Anatolia (clean water)
o Syria and Iraq: experienced a reduced flow of water (possible human rights violation)

Question 26

Choke point that bisects the city of Istanbul

Answer 26

Bosporus (narrow, strategic waterways)

Question 27

Advantages of agriculture over hunting and gathering

Answer 27

o More reliable
o Provides food security
o Supports higher population densities
o Food surplus

Question 28

Location of where Islam was founded

Answer 28

Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Question 29

Shari’a

Answer 29

Islamic code of conduct that guides daily life
o based on the Qu’ran and the life of Muhammed
o Legal system (ex: found in Saudi Arabia but not in Turkey)

Question 30

Country with Shiite-majority populations

Answer 30

Iraq

Question 31

The Arab Spring

Answer 31

o Protests, strikes, rebeliions
o Call for government and economic reform
o EX: government formed in Tunis, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen
o EX: the origin of Civil War in Syria

Question 32

What is the structure of population pyramids for oil-rich Persian Gulf countries? (e.g. Qatar)

Answer 32

o young adults and middle-aged
o skewed towards males

Question 33

Water body/region of the Middle East with great concentration of oil and natural gas

Answer 33

o In and around the Persian Gulf
o Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE

Question 34

Geographic origin of the Ottoman Empire

Answer 34

Turkey (Anatolia)

Question 35

Distributions/locations of Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish populations in Iraq

Answer 35

o Shitte: South East
o Sunni: Central and West
o Kurds: North

Question 36

The UN Partition Plan for Palestine (1947)

Answer 36

o Separation of Arab and Jewish states
o Palestine divided into a Jewish state, Arab state, and Jerusalem (middle)
o Israel (1948)
o Rejected by Palestine

Question 37

Territories occupied by Israel after the Six Day War

Answer 37

o 1967
o West Bank
o Gaza Strip
o Golan Heights
o Sinai Peninsula (returned to Egypt