Introduction Flashcards
Map projections
Types of maps. They usually biased.
Mercator: most common and quite distorted in the north, small africa
Hobo-Dryer Equal: North and South can be switched.
Gall-Peters: Africa given appropriate size. Shapes distorted.
Cartography
Is the making of maps.
Limitations: Maps are summaries and are inherently disorted.
Continental Drift
The slow movement of continents controlled by the process associated with plate tectchonics.
Plate Tectonics
Plates are bonded portions of the Earth’s mantle and crust, averaging 60 miles in thickness. More than a dozen such plates exist, most of continental proportions, and they are in motion. Where they meet one slides under the other (subduction), crumpling the surface crust and producing significant volcanic and earthquake activity; a major mountain-building force.
Pacific Ring of Fire
Zone of crustal instability along “tectonic plate” boundaries, marked by earthquakes and volcanic activity, that ring the Pacific Ocean Basin.
Hydrologic Cycle
How much rain, how often? The system of exchange involving water in its various forms as it continually circulates between the atmosphere, the oceans, and above and below the land surface.
Climate
The long-term conditions (over the last 30 years) of aggregate (weather) over a region, summarized by averages and measures of variability; a synthesis of the succession of weather events we have learned to expect at any given location.
Climate Change
Natural global warming that has been accelerated by anthropogenic (human-source) causes. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been emitting gasses that have enhanced nature’s (greenhouse effect) wherein the sun’s radiation becomes trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Realms
Each realm is defined in a synthesis of its total human geography — a composite of its leading cultural, economic, historical, political, and appropriate environmental features.
Regions
An area on the Earth’s surface marked by specific criteria. Can be formal or functional region.
Transition Zones
Where geographic realms meet. Not sharp boundaries, mark contact. It is an area of spatial change where peripheries of two adjacent realm or regions join. Marked by a gradual shift than a sharp break.
Functional Region
A region marked less by its sameness then by its dynamic internal structure. Ex: urban centered center of interaction.
Formal Region
A type of region marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one of more phenomona. I.e. japan
Hinterland
A term that applies to a surrounding area served by an urban center.
What is the world population and surface area?
Current world population: 7.05 billion
Occupying less than 30% of Earth’s surface
What are the three major population clusters?
1) East Asia
2) South Asia
3) Europe
Why did humans settle in these population clusters?
Major river valleys and coasts.
Agriculturally rich and then later discovery of industrial raw materials.
Rivers used for irrigation and then transportation (shipping).
Who has the highest and the lowest fertility rate?
Highest: SubSaharan Africa and MENA realms.
Lowest: Russia, Japan (E Asia), and Europe (Eastern Europe).
Cultural landscapes
Cultures and natural landscapes interact with one another… Societies develop cultures that revolve around or reflect their environments.
Cultural hearth
Heartland, source area, innovation center; place of origin of a major culture.
Source Areas
Areas of the world from which ideas, innovations, and ideologies that changes the world radiated.
Centripetal forces
Forces that unite and bind a country together — such as a strong national culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith.
Centrifugal forces
A term employed to designate forces that tend to divide a country — such as religious, linguistic, and ethnic differences.
Nation
A group of tightly knit people possessing bonds of language, ethnicity, religion, and other shared cultural atributes. Examples of stateless nations include Cherokees, Basques, Kurds, Palenstinians, Corsicians, Puerto Ricans, Scots, Chechens, Tibetans, and Qubeccers. Such homogeneity actually prevails within very few states… hence nation-state (Japan).
State
Politically organized territory with defined borders and population. Administration by a sovereign government that is not subordinate to another political unit. Recognized by a significant portion of the international community.
Nation-State
A state with a population that processes a very high degree of cultural homogeneity and unity.
Stateless Nations
A national group that aspires to become a nation-state but lacks territorial means to do so: the Palestinians and Kurds of Southwest Asia are leading examples.
Self-Determination
Freedom of the people of a given area to determine their own political status; independence.
Development
Gauges a state’s economic, social, and institutional growth and stability.
GDP
Gross Domestic Product. The total value of all goods and services produced in a country by that state’s economy during a given year.
Gini Coefficient
Statistical formula measuring distribution of wealth within a population.
- 0 = equatable distribution
- 0 = completely uneven with one earner taking all
- Gini scores are rising globally -worse in the developing world.
Core-Periphery
Theory that economic power is divided amongst powerful (core) and subordinate (periphery).
- core has and works to keep economic advantage over the periphery in global order (IMF)
- direct power (colonialism) -indirect power (Dependency)
- indebtedness and brain drain are also other factors
BRICS States
The end to the core-periphery model? Rise of the developing world. Brazil, Russia, India, China, then South Africa or South Korea
What is the population expected to hit in 2050?
10-11 billion. Stabilization zone.
