Unit 1 Vocabulary Flashcards
Human Geography
One of the two major divisions of geography; the spatial analysis of the human population, its cultures, activities, and landscapes.
Globalization
The expansion of economic, political, and cultural processes to the point that they become global in scale and impact.
Physical Geography
One of the two major divisions of systematic geography; spatial analysis of the structure, processes, and location of the Earth’s natural phenomena such as climate, soil, plants, animals, and topography.
Scale
Representation or a real world phenomena at a certain level
Spatial Distribution
Physical location of geographic phenomena across space.
Pattern
The design of a spatial distribution.
Medical Geography
The study of health and disease within a geographic context and from a geographical perspective.
Pandemic
An outbreak of a disease that spreads worldwide.
Epidemic
Regional outbreak of a disease.
Spatial Perspective
Observing variations in geographic phenomena across space.
Location theory
A logical attempt to explain the locational pattern of an economic activity and the manner in which its producing areas are interrelated.
Sense of Place
State of mind derived through the infusion of a place with meaning and emotion by remembering important events that occurred in that place or by labeling a place with a certain character.
Movement
The mobility of people, goods and ideas across the surface of the planet.
Spatial Interaction
Movement between places
Connectivity
The degree of direct linkage between one particular location and other locations in a transport network
Landscape
The overall appearance of an area.
Cultural Landscape
The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape.
Sequent Occupancy
The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.
Cartography
The art and science of making maps, including data compilation, layout, and design.
Reference Maps
Maps that show the absolute location of places and geographic features determined by a frame of reference, typically latitude and longitude.
Thematic Maps
Maps that tell stories, typically showing the degree of some attribute or the movement of a geographic phenomenon.
Absolute Location
The position or place of a certain item on the surface of the Earth as expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds of latitude and longitude.
Global Positioning System
Satellite-based system for determining the absolute location of places or geographic features.
Geocaching
A hunt for a cache, the Global Positioning System coordinates which are placed on the Internet by other geocachers.
Relative Location
The regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places.
Mental Maps
Image or picture of the way space is organized as determined by an individual’s perception, impression and knowledge of that space.
Activity Spaces
The space within which daily activity occurs.
Generalized map
Information on the map is not specific.
Remote Sensing
A method of collecting data or information through the use of instruments that is physically distant from the area or object of study.
Geographic Information Systems
A collection of computer hardware and software that permits spatial data to be collected, recorded, stored, retrieved, manipulated, analyzed and displayed to the user.
Rescale
Involvement of players at other scales to generate support for a position or an initiative.
Formal Region
A type of region marked by a certain degree of homogeneity in one or more phenomena
Functional Region
A region defined by the particular set of activities or interactions that occur within it.
Perceptual Region
A region that only exists as a conceptualization or an idea and not as a physically demarcated entity.
Culture Complex
A related set of cultural traits.
Cultural Hearth
Heartland, source area, innovation center; place of origin of a major culture.
Culture Trait
A single element of normal practice in a culture.
Cultural Diffusion
The expansion and adoption of a cultural element, from its place of origin to a wider area.
Independent Invention
The term for the trait with many cultural hearths that developed independent of each other.
Time Distance Decay
The declining degree of acceptance of an idea or innovation with increasing time and distance from its point of origin or source.
Cultural Barrier
Prevailing cultural attitude rendering certain innovations, ideas or practices unacceptable or unadoptable in that particular culture.
Expansion Diffusion
The spread of an innovation or an idea through a population in an area in such a way that the number of those influenced grows continuously larger, resulting in an expanding area of dissemination.
Contagious Diffusion
The distance-controlled spreading of an idea, innovation, or some other item through a local population by contact from person to person.
Hierarchical Diffusion
A form of diffusion in which an idea or innovation spreads by passing first among the most connected places or peoples.
Stimulus Diffusion
A form of diffusion in which a cultural adaptation is created as a result of the introduction of a cultural trait from another place.
Relocation diffusion
Sequential diffusion process in which the items being diffused are transmitted by their carrier agents as they evacuate the old areas and relocate to the new ones.
Environmental determinism
The view that the natural environment has a controlling influence over various aspects of human life, including cultural development.
Isotherms
Line on a map connecting points of equal temperature values.
Possibilism
Geographic viewpoint that holds that human decision making is the crucial factor in cultural development.
Cultural Ecology
The multiple interaction and relationships between a culture and the natural environment
Political Ecology
An approach to studying nature-society relations that is concerned with the ways in which environmental issues both reflect and are the result of the political and socioeconomic contexts in which they are situated.
Qualitative Data
Data that can be arranged into categories based physical traits, gender, colors or anything that does not have a number associated with it.
Quantitative Data
Data that can be counted or measured and therefore numbers.
Sustainability
The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
