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AP Human Geography
Unit III B Test – Chapters 6 & 7 Study Guide
Religion and Ethnicity
Chapter 6 Religion
Universalizing Religions – attempt to be global, to appeal to all people, actively seeking to convert people
Branch – a large and fundamental division within a religion
Denomination - a division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal &
administrative body
Sect – a relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination
A. Christianity
 2 billion adherents
 Branches:
Roman Catholic(52%), Protestant(21%), Eastern Orthodox(10%)
 Bible
B. Islam
 1.3 billion adherents, clustered in Middle East and Indonesia
 Five Pillars of Faith
1. Profession
2. Prayer
3. Alms
4. Fasting
5. Pilgrimage
 Branches: Sunni (orthodox 83%) Shiites (16%) clustered in Iran, Pakistan and Iraq
 Qu’ran
C. Buddhism
 400 million adherents
 found primarily in China and Southeast Asia
 For Noble Truths
 Three branches
D. Other universalizing: Sikhism & Baha’i
Ethnic Religions – appeal primarily to a group of people living in one place, and do not actively seek converts
A. Hinduism
 Third largest religion, 860 million adherents
 97% of Hindus are located in India
 no central authority or book
 Caste Syatem
B. Confucianism
 founded by Chinese philosopher & teacher Confucius
 centered on his teaching of “correct behavior”
 ethical principles for orderly conduct of daily life
C. Daoism
 founded by Lao-Zi, China
 Daoists seek the “way” or “path”
D. Shintoism
 Ethnic religion of Japan
 Consider forces of nature to be divine
E. Judaism
 Patriarch Abraham founded 4,000 years ago in area around Mediterranean
 6 million in US, 5 million in Israel, 2 million in Europe and 1 million each in Asia and Latin America
 Torah
F. Other ethnic religions
Animism – Africa, inanimate objects and events in nature are inhabited by spirits
Origin of Religions
Universalizing
Abrahamic – three monotheistic religions that have Abraham as a patriarch
A. Christianity
 Jesus, between 8 and 4 B.C, Bethlehem
B. Islam
 Abraham who with Hagar had a son – Ishmael
 Muhammad is Ishmael’s descendent born 570 AD
 Began to preach about the Allah and had to flee Mecca
 Following his death there was no clear transfer of power
o Shiite believe that there should be a direct descendent
o Sunni believe that there needs to be an elected leader
C. Buddhism
 Siddhartha Gautama, 563 BC present-day Nepal, near border with India
 His life changed after he witnessed suffering and pain, which he had no concept because his father
sheltered him
 Enlightenment came to him and he became known as the Buddha which means “enlightened one”
Ethnic
A. Hinduism
 No specific founder, Aryans entered India 1400 BC
Diffusion of Religions
Universalizing
A. Christianity – hearth Palestine
1. relocation – missionaries, trained to transmit Christianity carried the teachings of Jesus throughout the
Roman Empire (had excellent roads
2. contagious – spread widely within the Empire with daily contact between believers and nonbelievers
3. hierarchial – Roman Emperor Constantine encouraged its spread and security by declaring
Christianity the official religion of the Empire in 313 AD
 Spread from these points on throughout history through conversion of kings and queens or through
migration and missionary work in newly discovered territories.
B. Islam – hearth Mecca
 Organized armies following the death of Muhammad, conquered much of the Persian Empire
C. Buddhism – hearth India
 Asoka, missionary that spread Buddhism to Southeast Asia
Ethnic
 Lack missionaries to spread the religion
 Exception is Judaism, practiced many places outside of its place of origin

It has been only since 1949, that Jews have returned to the Middle East they left in 70 AD in what was
the diaspora, where the Romans forced them out
Holy Places
 Many times holy places in religions have a connection to places or events in the life of its founder
Buddhist – shrines
Islam – Mosque, Mecca, Kaaba, Medina, hajj
Hinduism – no central authority, Ganges River
Cosmogony – set of religious beliefs concerning the origins of the universe
Calendar
Ethnic – celebration of seasons, coordinates with planting and harvesting in many cultures
 In North America, the solar calendar is used, with months containing 30-31 days and 28 or 29 days in
February to make up the slack
Jewish – lunar calendar, except that the Jews add an extra month seven out of every 19 years to keep in
step with the solar calendar
 Their holidays celebrate seasons: Rosh Hashanah (New Year) & Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
Universalizing
 Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar like Judaism, however they do not compensate for the cycle and can
get out of step with the solar. Holidays can occur at different time in different years
 Christian holidays are coordinated with the events in the life of Jesus and the church
Place of Worship
Christian – church
Islam – mosque
Hindu – temples
Buddhist & Shinto – pagodas
Disposing of the Dead
Burial, cremation – which religions prefer which method
Religion versus Government Policies
 Taliban versus western values – Taliban was welcomed in as a change for Afghanistan, but once in
power, they made strict changes to the lives of the people
 Hinduism versus social equality – castes and outcastes
Religion versus Communism
 Soviet Union eliminated religion
Religion versus religion
 Ireland – Catholic v Protestant
 Middle East – Arab v Israeli
o What was the partition plan for the Middle East after the British withdrew
Chapter 7 Ethnicity
Distribution of ethnicities in the United States
 African – SE, 12% of total population
 Hispanic – SW, 14% of total population
 Asian American – West, 4% of total population
 Native American – Plains states, Alaska, 1% of total population
Concentrations within cities
 African ½ live in cities compared to ¼ of all Americans
 Distribution of Hispanics is similar to that of Africans
 Both ethnicities may make up a small percentage of the total state population, but could make a large
percentage of a major city population
African American Migration Patterns
 Forced migration to the colonies in the 18th century
 Voluntary migration from the south to the north during first half of 20th century
Differentiating Ethnicity and Race
Ethnicity – identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common
heredity and cultural traditions
Race - identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor
 Ethnicity is important to geographers because its characteristics derive from the distinctive features of a
particular place on Earth
 Color of skin – the distribution of persons of color matters to geographers because it is the fundamental
basis by which people in many societies sort out where they reside etc.
Racism – belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial
differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
 Separate But Equal
1. Plessy v Ferguson 1896, Louisiana law that required black & white passengers to ride in separate rail
cars, Constitutional
2. Jim Crow laws
3. Brown v Board of Education Topeka Kansas, 1954 “separate but equal” was unconstitutional equal
conditions did not exist between the Black and Whites, required immediate desegregation
4. White Flight – following desegregation whites fled in the anticipation of blacks entering their
neighborhoods
 Apartheid – South Africa, white minority (Afrikaans) ruling over a black majority
Ethnicities transformed into nationalities
Nationality – identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a
particular place as a result of being born there
Nation-state –
Nationalism – What are examples of nationalism?
Centripetal forceCentrifugal forceMulti-ethnic state Multinational state –
Why do ethnicities clash
 Ethiopia and Eritrea –
 Sudan
 Somalia
 Lebanon
 India
 Sri Lanka
Ethnic cleansing – process by which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in
order to create an ethnically homogeneous region
 Undertaken to rid an area of an entire ethnicity
Creation of Yugoslavia
 Created after WWI to unite several Balkan ethnicities that spoke similar Balto-Slavic languages
 Major ethnicities – Serbs & Croats
 Rivalries resurfaced following Tito’s death 1980, leading to the breakup of the country – Herzegovina,
Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro as well as Serbia
 New republics fought to redefine boundaries
 These ethnicities matched the newly formed republics
 However in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bosnian Muslim was considered a ethnicity instead of a nationality
 Serbs & Croats tried to unite their territories with neighboring Serbia & Croatia
 They also began to participate in an ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims
Kosovo
Balkanization
Rwanda & Buurundi