Vocab Flashcards
Topography(also site)
Physical features of the land
Situation
Place relative to other places
Coordinate
where latitude and longitude intersect(lines on every 5° or 10°)
Exact location
Coordinate(see coordinate for definition)
Latitude
parallel lines s and e(latt=fat)(right and left or side to side)
0° latitude
equator
Meridians
longitude
Longitude
n and s(up and down)
Prime meridian
line of longitude through Greenwich England, 0° longitude, +0 time zone(GMT)
Arable Land
farm land
Agratation
accumulation of data
Contiguity
near or touching something
Proximity
how close something is
Small scale
small amount of detail
Large scale
large amount of detail
Sub-national
smaller than national(ex. The 50 states)
National
dependent on national boundaries
Global
not dependent on national boundaries
Categorical
different in kind based on single theme(distinct color)
Coropleth
different in amount(shows intensity)
Scale
zooming in or out to see the earth or a house
Globalization
the blending of culture and economy on a global scale
Sequent occupance
The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape. This is an important concept in geography because it symbolizes how humans interact with their surroundings.
Cultural landscape
Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group. This is the essence of how humans interact with nature.
Arithmetic density
The total number of people divided by the total land area. This is what most people think of as density; how many people per area of land.
Physiological density
The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture. This is important because it relates to how much land is being used by how many people.
Hearth
The region from which innovative ideas originate. This relates to the important concept of the spreading of ideas from one area to another (diffusion).
Diffusion
The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.
Relocation diffusion
The spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another. Ex: spread of AIDS from New York, California, & Florida.
Expansion diffusion
The spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process.
Hierarchical diffusion
The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places (Ex: hip-hop/rap music)
Contagious diffusion
The rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population. (Ex: ideas placed on the internet)
Stimulus diffusion
the spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse. (Ex: PC & Apple competition)
Absolute distance
Exact measurement of the physical space between two places.
Relative distance
Approximate measurement of the physical space between two places.
Distribution
The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface.
Environmental determinism
A 19th - and early 20th -century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.
Absolute location
Position on Earth’s surface using the coordinate system of longitude (that runs from North to South Pole) and latitude (that runs parallel to the equator).
Relative location
Position on Earth’s surface relative to other features. (Ex: My house is west of 394).
Site
The physical character of place; what is found at the location and why it is significant
Situation
The location of a place relative to other places.
Space Time Compression
The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation system.
Friction of Distance
is based on the notion that distance usually requires some amount of effort, money, and/or energy to overcome. Because of this “friction,” spatial interactions will tend to take place more often over shorter distances; quantity of interaction will decline with distance.
Distance Decay
The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin. Typically, the farther away one group is from another, the less likely the two groups are to interact. (Electronic devices such as the internet and e-mail have aided in eliminating barriers to interaction between people who are far from each other.
Networks
defined by Manuel Castells as a set of interconnected nodes without a center.
Connectivity
The relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space. Geographers are concerned with the various means by which connections occur.
Accessibility
The degree of ease with which it is possible to reach certain location from other locations. Accessibility varies from place to place and can be measured.
Space
Refers to the physical gap or interval between two objects.
Spatial Distribution
Physical location of geographic phenomena across SPACE
Size
Is the estimation or determination of extent.
Scale
Representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance, indicated on a map as a bar graph, representative fraction, and/or verbal statement.
Formal Region
(uniform) or homogenous region is an area within which everyone shares in common one or mare distinctive characteristics. The shared feature could be a cultural value such as a common language, or an environmental climate.
Functional Region
(nodal region) Area organized around a node or focal point. The characteristic chosen to define a functional region dominates at a central focus or node and diminishes in importance outward. This region is tied to the central point by transportation or communication systems or by economic or functional associations.
Vernacular Region
(Perceptual Region) is a place that people believe exists as a part of their cultural identity. Such regions emerge from peoples informal sense of place rather than from scientific models developed through geographic thought. (Often identified using a mental map- which is an internal representation of a portion of Earths surface)
Possibilism
The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment.
Pattern
A common property of distribution, which is the geometric arrangement of objects in space. Some features are organized in a geometric pattern, whereas others are distributed irregularly. Geographers observe that many objects form a linear distribution, such as the arrangement of houses along a street or stations along a subway line.
Place Name
Often referred to as a places toponym (the name given to a place on Earth.
Age Distribution
(Population pyramid) is two back-to-back bar graphs, one showing the number of males and one showing females in a particular population in five-year age groups. This is important because you can tell from the age distribution important characteristic of a country, whether high guest worker population, they just had a war or a deadly disease and more.
Carry capacity
This is the population level that can be supported, given the quantity of food, habitat, water and other life infrastructure present. This is important because it tells how many people an area will be able to support.
Cohort
Population of various age categories in an age-sex population pyramids. This is important because this can tell what state this country it is whether in Stage 3 or Stage 5 in the demographic transition model.
Demographic equation
The formula that calculates population change. The formula finds the increase (or decrease) in a population. The formula is found by doing births minus deaths plus (or minus) net migration. This is important because it helps to determine which stage in the demographic transition model a country is in.
Demographic momentum
this is the tendency for growing population to continue growing after a fertility decline because of their young age distribution. This is important because once this happens a country moves to a different stage in the demographic transition model.
Demographic regions
Cape Verde is in Stage 2 (High Growth), Chile is in Stage 3 (Moderate Growth), and Denmark is in Stage 4 (Low Growth). This is important because it shows how different parts of the world are in different stages of the demographic transition.
Demographic Transition model
Has 5 steps. Stage 1 is low growth, Stage 2 is High Growth, Stage 3 is Moderate Growth, and Stage 4 is Low Growth and Stage 5 although not officially a stage is a possible stage that includes zero or negative population group. This is important because this is the way our country and others countries around the world are transformed from a less developed country to a more developed country.
Dependency ratio
The number of people who are too you or too old to work compared to the number of people in their productive years. This is important because this tells how many people each worker supports. For example the larger population of dependents, the greater financial burden on those who are working to support those who cannot.
Diffusion of fertility control
The diffusion of fertility control is spread throughout the world. In the U.S it’s below 2.1 in much of Africa it is above 4, if South America is between 2 and 3, in Europe it is below 2.1, in China and Russia it is below 2.1, and in much of the Middle East it is above 4. This is important because its shows how many kids a mother is having thus helping to see where the countries are growing rapidly and where countries are leveling off.
Disease diffusion
There are two types, contagious and hierarchical. Hierarchical is along high density areas that spread from urban to rural areas. Contagious is spread through the density of people. This is important in determining how the disease spread so you can predict how it will spread.
Doubling time
The number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase. This is important because it can help project the countries population increase over the years and when its population will double.
Ecumene
The proportion of earths surface occupied by permanent human settlement. This is important because its tells how much of the land has been built upon and how much land is left for us to build on.
Epidemiological transition model
This is a distinctive cause of death in each stage of the demographic transition. This is important because it can explain how a countries population changes so dramatically and more.
Infant mortality rate
(IMR) The annual number of deaths of infants under one year of age, compared with total live births. Its is expressed as the annual number of deaths among infants among infants per 1000 births rather than a percentage. This is important because it tell how developed a country is, if they have a high IMR they are an LDC and if it is low they are an MDC.
