Unit 2 Flashcards
Early cultural hearths?
The Nile, Tigris & Euphrates, Indus & Ganges, Yellow River & Yangzi.
Why does migration happen?
Because of push/pull factors.
How much of the world’s population lives within 500 miles of the ocean?
2/3
What type of areas have a scarce population?
Areas that are extremely dry, cold, or mountainous.
What are the three reasons why people live where they live?
Access to water, climate, arable land.
What are some urban functions?
Manufacturing, government, transportation, trade/office.
What do expansive population pyramids do?
Show larger numbers or percentages of the population in the younger age groups. Population growth is rapid. (Skinnier on top.)
What do constrictive population pyramids do?
Display lower numbers or percentages or younger people. Population growth is negative. (Fatter on top)
What do stationary population pyramids look like?
Boxy on the bottom, taper into a pyramid at the top.
What does a wide base indicate?
High birth rate.
What does a narrow base indicate?
Low birth rate.
What do concave sides indicate?
High death rate.
What do convex sides indicate?
Low death rate.
What do irregularities in the sides indicate?
A demographic anomaly.
What are characteristics of a city?
Developed infrastructure, system of utilities, transportation and housing.
What leads to cities forming?
Discovery of natural resources, transportation routes, food sources, etc.
What can population pyramids offer?
Population trends in the past, examine the current resident profile, project how the population will increase/decrease in the future.
Definition of culture?
The way of life of a group of people who share similar beliefs and customs.
What are things used to understand culture?
Spoken languages, practiced religions, smaller formed groups, people’s daily life, shared history, art forms created and how they make a living.
What are language families?
Large groups of languages having similar roots.
What is an ethnic group?
A group made up of people who share a common language, history, place of origin, or a combination of these elements.
What else do geographers also analyze to help understand a culture?
Governments.
What is a culture region?
Includes many different countries that have certain traits in common.
What is cultural diffusion?
The spread of new knowledge from one culture to another. Major factor in cultural development
What are cultural hearths?
Early centers of civilization whose ideas and practices spread to surrounding areas.
Most influential cultural hearths?
Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, China, Mexico.
What set the stage for the rise of cities and civilizations?
Surplus food.
What is globalization?
The process by which the countries of the world have experienced greater connectivity.
What is connectivity?
The degree of connection between people, places and things.
Benefits of globalization?
Increased standard of living, larger selection of competitively priced goods/services, growth of creativity/innovation, new technology, cooperation and awareness, greater access to foreign culture.
What is standard of living?
Level of wealth, goods, and necessities available.
What are challenges of globalization?
Outsourcing, increasing gap between rich/poor, loss of culture, pandemics, environmental degradation.
What is outsourcing?
Setting up businesses abroad to produce parts and products for domestic use or sale.
What are pandemics?
The spread of disease across a large area or even the world.
What has helped foster cultural diffusion?
Migration.
What is urban sprawl?
The spreading or urban areas onto undeveloped land near cities.
The world’s _____ population is growing much faster than its ______.
Urban; rural.
What is connectivity? (urban)
The directness of routes and communication linking pairs of places.
All cities serve a variety of functions; what are some?
Manufacturing, retail, service centers.
Cities are centers of what?
Culture and creativity.
Urban advantages?
Diverse people/activities, innovation, creativity.
Urban disadvantages?
Overcrowding, crime, poverty, social conflict, pollution.
What is a metropolitan area?
A region that includes a central city and its surrounding suburbs.
What is urban structure?
The arrangement of land use in urban areas/urban spatial structure
Urban spatial structure?
Concerns the arrangement of public and private space in cities and the degree of connectivity/accessibility.
What is central place theory?
A spatial theory in urban geography that attempts to explain the reasons behind the distribution patters, size, and number of cities/towns around the world.
What is a world city?
A city generally considered to play an important role in the global economic system.
World cities include what features?
International diverse cultures, an active influence on/interaction in world affairs, large population, major international airport, advanced transportation system. Ex. Istanbul.
What does suburbia refer to?
An outlying community around the city.
What are “Boomers”?
Edge cities developed around something like a shopping mall/huge retail complex. (most common)
What are “Greenfields”?
New, master-planned city built on undeveloped land.
What are “Uptowns”?
Historic activity centers built over an older city or town.
What does urbanization also refer to?
Changes in the economic, social, and political structures of a region.
Major effect of rapid urban growth?
Urban sprawl.
What was the first city?
Mesopotamia.
Specialization started to develop what?
Artisans, farmers, merchants, ruling elites.(military/religious leaders.)
What were the people ruling the cities (usually the ruling elites) responsible for?
Writing the laws, levying taxes, supervising public building.
What did Rome, the center of the Roman Empire, contribute?
Built all over Europe, roads still used today, developed the grid system to lay out their cities (later spread all over Europe), brought water from mountains by aqueducts.
What caused the fall of the Roman Empire?
Invasion of the Germanic tribes.
What happened during the Middle Ages?
Villages, etc. began to increase after Dark Ages, trade between villages would develop large cities.
What happened during the Industrial Revolution?
Next large growth of cities–started in Europe and spread to North America in the late 1700’s.
What happened during immigration and the second Agricultural Revolution?
Helped spread urbanization in the twentieth century; rural to urban migration; dramatically increased size of NA cities.
What is an urban environment?
Shaped by human activities, cities have to deal with problems and increasing population.
Urban landscape is made of?
Site (physical features) and situation (position of a place in relation to all places around it); influences on where people will settle.
What factors do we need for a city?
Water (fresh), abundant food source, fertile land, good climate, natural protection, (site), near a trade center, river for transportation, located near natural resources, (situation).
What is development in reference to geography?
Refers to improvements in the economic and social welfare of people as well as improvements in production and technology.
Countries specialize to which economic activities?
Ones that are suited to their resources.
Geographers and economists classify all of the world’s economic activities into what four groups?
Primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary.
What are primary economic activities?
They involve taking or using natural resources directly from the Earth.
What are secondary economic activities?
Use of raw materials to make a tangible product.
What are tertiary economic activities?
Do not involve directly acquiring and remaking natural resources; providing services to people/businesses.
What are quaternary economic activities?
Concerned with the processing, management, and distribution of information.
What are more developed countries?
Countries having more technology and manufacturing.
What are newly industrialized countries?
Countries that have moved from being primarily agricultural to primarily manufacturing and industrial activities.
What are less developed countries?
Countries where agriculture remains dominant, and usually live in poverty.
What is human development?
The process that increases the range of choices available to people to live a long, healthy, and prosperous life.
What do social, political and demographic factors help define in a country?
Its level of development.
What is the HDI used to rank?
A country’s level of development through health, education and living standards.
What is world trade?
The exchange of capital, labor, goods, and services across international borders or territories, involving the import and export of goods.
What are some things that promotes a complex network of trade among countries?
Unequal distribution of natural resources, different labor costs and education.
