Unit 1 - Vocabulary Flashcards
Absolute Location
The location of a place based on a fixed point Earth (mathematical)
Cartography
Science of mapmaking
Contagious Diffusion
The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population
Cultural Ecology
Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships
Culture
The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group’s distinctive tradition
Deforestation
The clearing of trees; transforming a forest into cleared land
Density
The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area
Diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time
Distance-Decay
The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin
Distribution
The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface
Enclave
A piece of land that is surrounded by foreign territory
Environmental Determinism
A 19th and early 20th century approach to the study of geography which argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how physical environment caused human activities
Equator
The imaginary great circle around the Earth’s surface that divides the Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. It is equidistant from the poles and perpendicular to the Earth’s axis of rotation
Eratosthenes
The first person of record to use the word “geography” and he prepared one of the earliest maps of the known world
Expansion Diffusion
The spread of a feature of trend among people from one area to another in an additive process
Favelas
A Brazilian shack or shanty town; a slum
Friction of Distance
The notion that distance usually requires some amount of effort (energy) and/or money to overcome
Functional Region (nodal)
An area organized around a node or focal point
Geographic Information System (GIS)
A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data
Global Positioning System (GPS)
A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers
Hierarchical Diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to the other persons or places
Hearth
The region from which innovative ideas originate
International Date Line
An arc that for the most part follows 180 degrees longitude, although it deviates several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line heading east (towards America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When you go west (towards Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day
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)
Longitude
The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0 degrees)
Megacities
A very large city, typically one with over 10 million people
Mercator Projection
A projection of a map of the world onto a cylinder in such a way that all the parallels of latitude have the same length as the equator, used especially for marine charts and a certain climatological maps
Model
A representation of something at a smaller scale than the original
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
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
Ptolemy
Produced maps based on information collected by merchants and soldiers who traveled through the Roman Empire
Region
An area distingued by a unique combination of trends or features
Relative Location
The regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of other places
Relocation Diffusion
The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movements 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
Robinson Projection
A compromise map projection showing the poles as lines rather than points and more accurately portraying high latitude lands and water to land ratio
Scale
Generally, the relationship between portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole
Sequent Occupancy
The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape
Shifting Cultivation (slash and burn)
a form of agriculture, used especially in tropical Africa, in which an area of ground is cleared of vegetation and cultivated for a few years and then abandoned for a new area until its fertility has been naturally restored.
Site
The physical and cultural characteristics of a place
Situation
The location of a place relative to another place
Space-Time Compression
The reduction in time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved communications and transportation systems
Spatial Analysis
A set of techniques for analyzing spatial data; the process of examining the locations, attributes and relationships of features in spatial data through overlay and other analytical techniques in order to address a question or gain knowledge
Squatter Settlements
An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures
Stimulus Diffusion
The spread of an underlying principle even though a specific characteristic is rejected
Time Zones
One of the 24 regions or division of the globe approximately coinciding with meridians at successive hours from the observatory at Greenwich, England; every 15 degrees
Tobler’s First Law
“Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.”
Toponym
The name given to portion of Earth’s surface
Uneven Development
The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy
Vernacular Region (perpetual)
An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity
Spatial Perspective
Observing variations in geographic phenomena across space
