Download AP Human Geography – Vocabulary List Section 1: Thinking

AP Human Geography – Vocabulary List
Section 1: Thinking Geographically
2015-16
Many of the given terms are defined for you; however, you will have to look up others using a
variety of resources.
Pattison’s Four Traditions (1964): W.D. Pattison
-earth-science: physical geography (not one of the Five Themes)
-locational: spatial tradition (location)
-man-land: human/environmental interaction
-area-studies: regional geography
Five Themes of Geography (1986): GENIP
-location: position; situation of people and things
-human/environmental interaction: reciprocal relationship b/w humans & environment
-region: area on Earth’s surface marked by a degree of homogeneity (uniformity) of some phenomenon
-place: uniqueness of a location (or similarity of two or more locales); phenomena within an area
-movement: mobility of people, goods and ideas; phenomena between areas
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).
Accessibility(a spatial interaction): 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.
Acculturation: Process of adopting only certain customs that will be to their advantage
Agricultural Density: The population density measured as the number of farmers per unit area
of arable land
Anthropogenic: Caused or produced by humans
Arable Land: it means that something can grow there. If you're looking to raise crops, you need
to find yourself a patch of arable land.
Assimilation: Process of less dominant cultures losing their culture to a more dominant culture
Base Line: An East-West line designated under the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the
surveying and numbering of townships in the United States.
Cartography: the study and practice of making maps.
Concentration: the spread of something over a given area
Connectivity/Connections (a spatial interaction): The relationships among people and objects
across the barrier of space. Geographers are concerned with the various means by which
connections occur.
Culture: the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings,
hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and
material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations
through individual and group striving.
Culture complex: a combination of related cultural traits (e.g., prevailing modes of dress;
nationalism)
Cultural Ecology: The geographic study of the multiple interactions of human-environmental
relationships
Cultural diffusion: The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over
time.
Cultural landscape: ( also called built environment/cultural attributes) Fashioning of a
natural landscape by a cultural group. This is the essence of how humans interact with nature.
Cultural trait: a single element of normal practice in a culture (e.g., wearing a turban)
Density: The quantity of something per unit measure, especially per unit length, area, or volume.
b. The mass per unit volume of a substance under specified conditions. In Human Geography it
is often used to describe the number of people per area of land.
- 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.
Diffusion (Cultural diffusion): The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to
another over time.
Distortion:
Expansion diffusion: The spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing
process. This can happen in 3 ways: (each of these needs its own flashcard-sorry)
-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)
-Stimulus diffusion: the spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself
apparently fails to diffuse. (Ex: PC & Apple competition, p40)
-Contagious diffusion: The rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the
population. (Ex: ideas placed on the internet)
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.
-Migrant diffusion: spread of an idea through people, in which the phenomena weakens or dies
out at its previous source … moves like a “Slinky” (e.g., spread of the Spanish Flu toward the
end of World War I).
Dispersion/concentration (dispersed/scattered, clustered/agglomerated):
Distance Decay (a spatial interaction): 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.
Distance:
Absolute distance: Exact measurement of the physical space between two places.
Absolute direction:
Relative distance: Approximate measurement of the physical space between two places.
Relative direction:
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. (e.g., Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs, and Steel)
Environmental perception: a person’s idea or image of a place; may often be inaccurate.
First Agricultural Revolution: beginning around 12,000 years ago; achieved plant
domestication (human influence on genetic modification of a plant) and animal domestication
(genetic modification of an animal to make it more amenable to human control and use); began
permanent settlements along fertile river valleys which moved humans from egalitarian
societies (equal) to more stratified societies (unequal).
Friction of Distance (a spatial interaction): 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.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS): collection of computer hardware and software
permitting spatial data to be collected, recorded, stored, retrieved, used, and displayed.
Global Positioning System (GPS): satellite-based system for determining the absolute location
of places.
Globalization: the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world
views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. (E.g. Coca-Cola is recognized the world
over).
Greenwich Mean Time: was established in 1884 at the International Meridian Conference,
when it was decided to place the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England.
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).
Culture 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). Must be viewed in the
context of time …
-Ancient culture hearth: Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley, Chang & Yellow River Valley (China),
Nile River Valley and Delta, Meso-America (origin of farming developed during the First
Agricultural Revolution beginning around 12,000 years ago).
-Modern culture hearth: Europe, North America, Japan (origin and focus of the Industrial
Revolution beginning in the early 1800s after the onset of the Second Agricultural Revolution).
Holocene epoch: current interglaciation period (sustained warming phase between glaciations
during an ice age), extending from around 12,000 years ago to the present (some scientists
speculate that since humans influence the Earth as no species was able to before, we have
recently entered the Anthropocene epoch).
International Date Line:
Land Ordinance of 1785: (Look in textbook)
Latitude: Latitude is an angle (defined below) which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90°
(North or South) at the poles. Lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east-west as circles
parallel to the equator. Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the precise location of
features on the surface of the Earth.
Location:
-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 east
of I-75).
Longitude: angular distance east or west on the earth's surface, measured by the angle contained
between the meridian of a particular place and some prime meridian, as that of Greenwich,
England, and expressed either in degrees or by some corresponding difference in time.
Maps & Map Terms
Map:
Map projections: any 3-dimensional object (Earth) will project some distortion onto any 2dimensional object (map)
-Azimuthal: directions from a central point are preserved; usually these projections also have
radial symmetry
-Mercator: straight meridians and parallels that intersect at right angles, used for marine
navigation
-Peters: equal-area cylindrical, areas of equal size on the globe are also equally sized on the map
-Robinson: distorts shape, area, scale, and distance in an attempt to balance the errors of
projection properties
-Fuller: using the surface of a polyhedron, it is unfolded to a net in many different ways and
flattened to form a two-dimensional map which retains most of the globe’s relative proportional
integrity
Types of maps:
-dot: one dot represents a certain number of phenomena (e.g., population)
-thematic: made to reflect a particular theme about a geographic area (e.g., geographic,
topographic, political, …) Four types: dot, isoline, choropleth, and proportional symbol.
-choropleth: thematic map in which areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the
measurement of the statistical variable being displayed (e.g., population density)
-isoline:
-reference: generalized map type designed to show general spatial properties of features (e.g.,
world maps, road maps, atlas maps)
-proportional symbol: type of thematic map in which the areas of symbols are varied in
proportion to the value of an attribute (e.g., city population)
-preference: map demonstrating progressively more desirable options
-cartogram: map in which some thematic mapping variable is substituted for land area (e.g.,
GDP)
Map terms:
-grid:
-parallel: line of latitude (Equator, Tropic of Cancer & Capricorn, Arctic & Antarctic Circles).
Imaginary line extending around the Earth parallel to the equator; it is used to indicate latitude. The
38th parallel, for example, has latitude of 38° N or 38° S.
-meridian: line of longitude (Prime Meridian, International Date Line)
Time Zones:
TODALSIG: (Title, Orientation, Date, Author, Legend, Scale, Index, Grid) acronym for
assessing the validity and reliability of any map
Scale: representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or
generalization; represented as a fraction (large scale= large detail, small area; small scale =
small detain, large area)
Mental Map: An image in one’s mind of a location relative to other places one knows. E.g.
How to get from your house to the school: what would you pass, what kinds of landmarks would
you point out, etc.
Meridian:
Natural Landscape- (physical attributes):
Networks (a spatial interaction): defined by Manuel Castells as a set of interconnected nodes
without a center.
Pattern (Types of patterns: linear, centralized, random): 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: Place describes the human and physical characteristics of a location. e.g. Physical
characteristics include a description such things as the mountains, rivers, beaches, topography,
and animal and plant life of a place.
Polder: a low-lying tract of land enclosed by embankments (barriers) known as dikes that forms
an artificial hydrological entity, meaning it has no connection with outside water other than
through manually operated devices.
Possibilism- The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the
ability to adjust to their environment.
Prime Meridian: A prime meridian is a meridian in a geographical coordinate system at which
longitude is defined to be 0°. A prime meridian and its opposite in a 360°-system, the 180th
meridian, form a great circle.
Principal Meridian: In the United States Public Land Survey System, a principal meridian is
the principal north-south line used for survey control in a large region, and which divides
townships between east and west.
Qualitative data: described in terms of its quality (that is, informal or relative characteristics
such as culture, language, religion …).
Quantitative data: precisely describes data using numbers and measures (population, political,
economic …).
Regions:
-Formal Region- (uniform, homogenous region) is an area within which everyone shares in
common one or more 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. (A newspaper route)
-Vernacular Region- (also called Perceptual Region) is a place that people believe exists as a
part of their cultural identity. Such regions emerge from people’s 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) Many "belts" fit
this description ... cotton belt (what used to be dominated by agriculture, and is often referred to
as the New South), Bible belt, sun belt, rust belt, ...
Regional Studies: Regional geography is the study of world regions. Attention is paid to unique
characteristics of a particular region such as natural elements, human elements, and
regionalization which covers the techniques of delineating space into regions.
Relative distance: Approximate measurement of the physical space between two places.
Relative location: Position on Earth’s surface relative to other features. (Ex: My house is west
of Atlanta).
Remote sensing: method of collecting data or information through the use of instruments (e.g.,
satellites) that are physically distant from the area or object of study.
Resource: a source of supply, support, or aid, especially one that can be readily drawn upon
when needed.
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.
Section: a square normally 1 mile on a side
Sequent Occupance (a changing attribute of place): 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.
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. (I live south of I-20).
Size- Is the estimation or determination of extent.
Space Time Compression (a spatial interaction): The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse
something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation system.
Space: Refers to the physical gap or interval between two objects.
Spatial Distribution: Physical location of geographic phenomena across SPACE; of or
pertaining to space on or near earth’s surface)
Toponym/Place Name: The name given to a place on Earth.
Township: a unit of local government, usually a subdivision of a county, found in most
midwestern and northeastern states of the U.S. and in most Canadian provinces.
Transculturation: A near equal exchange of culture traits or customs
Transnational Corporation: A transnational corporation has its headquarters in one country
and operates wholly/entirely or partially owned subsidiaries in one or more other countries.
Uneven Development: The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and
peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.
Directions for Vocabulary Flashcards: You will need to create a flashcard for each vocabulary
word as that word relates to Human Geography. (I say as it relates to Human Geography
because some words have different meanings in other subject areas). On the front of the card,
you will have the term. On the back of the card, you will have a definition; it is very important
that you do your best to write these definitions in your own words because they will be more
memorable to you. Also on the back of the card, you will include an illustration/picture that
helps you to remember what each word means. If you absolutely cannot think of a picture, every
so often (sparingly), you may use a written example. However pictures will help you remember
better. You may handwrite or type these. Some people type them and glue them onto the
flashcards, some people have a computer program (Avery* has a free flashcard program)--and
some of us just have to do it the old fashioned way by writing the cards and drawing the pictures
(as best we can). You will keep your flashcards all year to study for the AP test at the end of the
school year.
- It may be easier to make vocabulary flashcards before reading, that way when you read--you
will have an idea as to what the various words/concepts mean. Other people prefer tomake the
flashcard as they come across it in the reading; then any words for which they do not have a
flashcard for at the end, they then make a flashcard. But whatever way works best for you is
what you need to do.
*In this case, Avery is a brand name—not a person.
-Quiz yourself over your vocabulary. You will be tested over them when the school year begins.
Anything in bold print is fair game.
Flashcard example:
Arable
Land
Arable Land: Land on which
something is able to be grown.