Terms Flashcards
Alluvial Fan
Fan-shaped deposits of sediments dropped by streams flowing out of the mountains. These areas have long been devoted to intensive cultivation.
Exotic Rivers
Originate in more humid areas. Very scarce in the Gobi
Bodhisattva
Spiritual being who helps others attain enlightenment. The Dalai Lama is considered to be a reincarnation of Bodhisattva of compassion.
Taliban
Extremist organization that insisted that all aspects of society conform to its own harsh version of Islamic orthodoxy. Controlled Afghanistan from mid 1990’s-2001.
Theocracy
Religious state. Tibet was essentially a theocracy with the Dalai Lama enjoying political as well as religious authority.
Exclave
A piece of territory separated from the rest of the country.
Transhumance
Move their flocks from lowland pastures in the winter to highland meadows in the summer.
Pastoralists
People who raise livestock for subsistence purposes.
Shanghai Cooperation ORganization (SCO)
“Shanghai Six” Composed of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO seeks cooperation on such security issues as terrorism and separatism, aims to enhance trade, and serves as a counterbalance against the US. Mongolia is an “Observer”.
Anthropogenic Landscape
Land that has been heavily transformed by human activities. Virtually its entire extent is either cultivated or occupied by houses, factories, and other structures of human society. North China Plain is the best example of this.
Superconurbation
Megalopolis. Huge zone of coalesced metropolitan areas.
Autonomous Region
Provinces that have been granted a certain degree of political and cultural autonomy, or freedom from centralized authority, owing to the fact that they contain large numbers of non-Han Chinese people. Critics contend that they have little true autonomy.
Burakumin
Also known as Eta, an outcast group of Japanese whose ancestors worked in “polluting” industries such as leathercraft. Victimized people in Japan. Among the poorest and least educated people in Japan.
Central Place Theory
Holds that an evenly distributed rural population will give rise to a regular hierarchy of urban places, with uniformly spaced larger cities surrounded by constellations of smaller cities, each of which, in turn, will be surrounded by smaller towns.
China Proper
The eastern half of the country of China where the Han Chinese form the dominant ethnic group. The vast majority of China’s population is located in China proper.
Diaspora
Scattering of a particular group of people over a vast geographical area. This has brought hundreds of thousands of Koreans to the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Tonal
Their worlds are composed of a single syllable, and the meaning of each basic syllable changes according to the pitch in which it is uttered.
Marxism
Demands absolute loyalty to North Korea’s political leaders. Means “self-reliance.”
Geomancy
Feng shui. The Chinese and Korean practice of designing buildings in accordance with the spiritual powers that supposedly course through the local topography.
Cold War (China)
China decided early on during the Cold War decades that they would isolate themselves as much as possible from Western and global culture.
COnfucianism
Philosophy developed by Confucius. Came to occupy a significant position in all of the societies of the region. Some call East Asian the “Confucian world.”
Ideographic Writing
Each character primarily represents an idea rather than a sound. Ideographic writing requires the use of a large number of distinct symbols.
Laissez-faire
French term meaning “Let it be.” Hong Kong has a very strong laissez-faire economic system, meaning to have a great amount of market freedom from government interference.
Social and Regional Differntiation
Certain groups of people and certain portions of the country prospered far more than others during the Chinese economic surge.
Sediment Load
Suspended clay, silt, and sand. Makes the Huang He the world’s muddiest major river.
Mandarins
Members of the high-level bureaucracy of Imperial China (before 1911). Mandarin Chinese is the official spoken language of the country and is the native tongue of the vast majority of people living in the north, central, and southwestern China.
Pollution exporting
Because of Japan’s high cost of production and its strict environmental laws, many Japanese companies have moved their dirtier factories overseas. In effect, Japan’s pollution has been partially displaced to poorer countries.
Regulatory Lakes
IN periods of high water, river flows are diverted into regulatory lakes in order to reduce the flow downstream.
Rust Belt
Manchurian rust belt or zone of decaying factories are not efficient. Once productive oil wells, are largely exhausted.
Shogunate
The political order of Japan before 1868, in which the power was held by the military leader known has the shogun, rather than the emperor, whose authority was merely symbolic. A Shogun was a supreme military leader who theoretically remained under the emperor.
Special Economic Zones (SEZ)
Foreign investment is welcome and state interference minimal. Basic strategy is to attract foreign investment that could generate exports, the income from which would supply China with the capital it needed to build its infrastructure and thus achieve conditions of sustained economic growth.
Spheres of Influence
In a sphere of influence the colonial power had no formal political authority but did enjoy informal influence and tremendous economic clout. Not formally colonized. Gained for trade purposes and more generally for economic exploitation and political manipulation.
Urban Primacy
Urban population concentrated in a single city.
British East India Company:
Private firm that acted as an arm of the British Government. Monopolized overseas trade and began to stake out a South Asian Empire of it’s own.
• Maharaja
Hindu king subject to British advisors.
• Caste System
Strict division of society into different hierarchically ranked hereditary groups.
• Mughal Empire
Dominated much of the region from its power center in the upper Indus-Ganges Basin. Muslim dominated stated that covered most of South Asia from the early 16th to the late 17th centuries. The last vestiges of the Mughal dynasty were dissolved by the British following the rebellion of 1857
• Dalits
So-called untouchables. Group that stands outside the varna system altogether. Dalits were not traditionally allowed to enter Hindu temples. Such low status positions were derived from historically “unclean” occupations, such as those of leather workers, scavengers, latrine cleaners, and swine herders.
• Sikhism
Sikhism originated in the late 1400s in Punjab. Sikhism was a new religion that came from the tension between Hinduism and Islam. The new faith combined elements of both religions and thus appealed to many who felt trapped between their competing claims.
Jainism
Jainism emerged as a protest against orthodox Hinduism. This religion took nonviolence to its ultimate extreme. Jains are forbidden to kill any living creatures, and most wear masks to prevent the inhalation of small insects. Agriculture is forbidden to Jains.
Dravidian
Languages of southern Indian belong to the Dravidian family, a linguistic group unique to South Asia. Tamil is an example of DL. Any modern Indo-European language of India is more closely related to English than it is to any DL. DL has borrowed many words from Sanskrit, particularly those associated with religion and scholarship.
Linguistic Nationalism
The linking of a specific language with nationalistic goals. Indian nationalists of long dreamed of a national language that could help forge the different communities of the country into a more unified nation. This ideal is met with stiff resistance of provincial loyalty, which itself is intertwined with local languages.
Federal State
Political system in which a significant amount of power is given to individual states. In India, these states were created upon independence in 1947 and were drawn primarily along linguistic lines so that today state power is often associated with specific ethnic groups within the nation.
Tamil Tigers
Rebel force that attacked the Sri Lankan army in 1983. Tamils support political and cultural autonomy, and they have accused the government of discriminating against them. Government has favored the Sinhalese majority.
Indian Diaspora
Migration of large numbers of Indians to foreign countries. Gujaratis have long been famed as merchants and overseas traders, representing a large number in the Indian Diaspora. As a result, cash remittances from these emigrants help to bolster the state’s economy.
Green Revolution
Green revolution is the main reason that South Asian agriculture has kept up with population growth. It originated during the 1960s in agricultural research stations established by international development agencies. A new dwarf crop was created in order to produce extra grain rather than longer stems.
Salinization
Buildup of salt in agricultural fields as a result of overworked land by irrigation.
Forward Capital
A city is referred to this if it signals, both symbolically and geographically, the intentions of the country. Islamabad is an example of this in Pakistan.
Hindu Nationalism
Also known as Hindu fundamentalism. Hindu nationalists promote the religious values of Hinduism as the essential and fabric of Indian society. Hindu nationalists gained considerable political power both a the federal level and in many Indian states, leading to widespread agitation against the country’s Muslim minority in the mid-1990s.
MOnsoon
Distinct seasonal change of wind direction that corresponds to wet and dry periods. This is the dominant climatic factor for most of South Asia.
Orographic Rainfall
Results from the uplifting and cooling of moist monsoon winds over the Western Ghats. As a result, some stations receive tons of rain during the 4 month wet season. The Deccan Plateau is strongly affected by rain shadow, reducing rainfall.
Subcontinent
Large segment of land separated from the main land mass on which it sits by lofty mountains or other geographical barriers. South Asia, separated from the rest of Eurasia by the Himalayas, is often called the Indian subcontinent.
Cyclones
Large storms, marked by well-defined air circulation around a low pressure center. Tropical cyclones are typically called hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and typhoons in the western Pacific.
Animism
A wide variety of tribal religions based on the worship of nature spirits and human ancestors.
Association of SOutheast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Includes 10 of the regions 11 countries. ASEAN has brought a new level of regional cooperation.
Sunda Shelf
An extension of the continental shelf stretching from the mainland through the Java Sea between Java and Borneo.
Tsunamis
Often a result from volcano eruptions or earthquakes, which can devastate coastal regions.
Transmigration
Government helping people move from densely populated to lightly populated parts of the country. The outer islands of Indonesia have grown rapidly since the 70s.
SHifted CUltivators
In some areas, farmers have little choice but to adopt a semi swidden form of cultivation, moving to new sites once the old ones have been exhausted.
Primate Cities
urban settlements that overshadow all others.
Ramayana
Muslim Java the Hindu epic. Remains a central cultural feature to this day.
Lingua Franca
Common trade language, in Southeast Asia it is Malay.
Khmer Rouge
“Red Cambodians.” The left wing insurgent group led by French educated Marxists that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979, during which time it engaged in genocidal acts against the Cambodian people.
Bumiputra
The name given to the native Malays, who are given preference for jobs and schooling by the Malaysian government.
Copra
Dried coconut meat
Crony Capitalism
A system in which close friends of a political leader are either legally or illegally given business advantages in return for their political support.
Domino Theory
A US geopolitical policy of the 1970s that stemmed from the assumption that if Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of Southeast Asian would soon follow.
Entrepot
a city and port that specializes transshipment of goods.
Golden Triangle
An area of northern Thailand, Burma, and Laos that is known as major source region for heroin and is plugged into the global drug trade.
Swidden
A form of tropical cultivation in which forested or brushy plots are cleared of vegetation, burned, and the planted in crops, only to be abandoned a few years later as soil fertility declines. Also called slash and burn agriculture or shifting cultivation.
Aoteroa
Land of the Long White Cloud. Indigenous name of Maori.
Native Title Bill
Compensated Aborigines for lands already given up, and gave them the right to gain title to unclaimed lands they still occupied, as well as providing them with legal standing to deal with mining companies in native settled areas.
PIdgin English
Found in the Solomons, Banuatu, and New Guinea, where it is the major language used between ethnic groups. In Pijin, a largely English bacillary is reworked and blended with Melanesian grammar.
Haoles
Light skinned European and American foreigners were successfully profiting from commercial sugarcane plantations and Pacific shipping contracts.
White Australia Policy
Governmental guidelines promoted European and North American immigration at the expense of other groups.
Kanakas
Melanesia workers imported to Australia, historically concentrated along Queensland’s “Sugar coast.” Spatially and socially segregated from their Anglo employers but further diversified the cultural mix of Queensland’s sugar coast.
High Islands
Form from larger active and recently active volcanoes that often rise to a considerable elevation and cover a large area.
Mallee
A vegetation that is scrubby eucalyptus woodland.
Outback
Australia’s huge and dry interior is commonly called the Outback. It is thinly settled, similar to the Sahara.
Melanesia
Means dark islands. Contains the culturally complex, generally darker skinned peoples of New Huinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji.
Archipelagos
Small island groups.
Polynesia
The small island groups of the central South Pacific. Linguistically unified subregion includes French controlled Tahiti in the Society Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, and smaller political states such as Tonga, Tuvalu, and Samoa.
Maori
Polynesia’s native peoples. Share many cultural and physical characteristics with the somewhat lighter skinned peoples of the mid pacific region.
Micronesia
North of Melanesia and west of Polynesia. Includes microstates such as Nauru and the Marshall Islands, as well as the U.S. territory of Guam.
Atoll
Combination of narrow sandy islands, barrier coral reefs, and shallow central lagoons is known as an atoll. The islands and reefs of an atoll characteristically form a circular or oval shape, although some are irregular.
Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation Group (APEC)
an organization designed to encourage economic development in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Basin. The region’s economic ties to Asia also carry risks, however, the Asian downturn in the 1990’s slowed the popular Korean tourist trade to New Zealand and also lowered China’s demand for a variety of Australian raw material exports.
Closer Economic Relations (CER) Agreement
Promotes more economic integration within the region of Australia and New Zealand. It successfully slashed trade barriers between the two countries. As a result New Zealand benefitted from the opening of larger Australian markets to New Zealand exports, and Australian corporate and financial interests gained new access to New Zealand business opportunities.
Oceania
a collection of islands that reach from New Guinea and New Zealand to the U.S. state of Hawaii in the mid Pacific.
Un-contacted peoples
Cultural groups that have yet to be discovered by the western world. Some of these groups are in the New Guinea highlands.
Hot Spot
The entire island of Hawaii is a geological hot spot where slowly moving oceanic crust passes over a vast supply of magma from Earth’s interior, thus creating a chain of volcanic islands.
Viticulture
Grape cultivation. Increasingly shapes the rural scene in places such as South Australia’s Barossa Valley, the Riverina district in New South Wales, and Western Australia’s Swan Valley.
