AP Human Geography Unit 3 Test

The vocab

Culture

the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively

Culture Trait

a single, identifiable element of a specific culture, such as a belief, practice, or object, that is socially learned and transmitted

Cultural Realm

a large area defined by a cluster of related culture regions and dominant cultural traits, often united by religion or other shared systems

Habit

a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is regularly followed until it becomes automatic.

Custom 

a traditional and frequent practice or behavior that becomes characteristic of a group of people, as opposed to a habit which is an individual repetition

Material Culture (Artifact)

refers to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture, with artifacts being the tangible, human-made items within that culture

Cultural Identity

the sense of belonging to a group, shaped by shared beliefs, values, customs, traditions, and practices like language, religion, and ethnicity

Folk Culture

the culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, and often rural group of people living in relative isolation. 

Pop Culture

the set of mainstream, widely accepted cultural traits, ideas, and practices that are prevalent in modern society

Taboo

a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Cultural Perception

the varying attitudes and ideas that different cultural groups have about how space

Folklore

the unwritten lore of a culture, including its traditional stories, proverbs, riddles, songs, and beliefs, passed down orally or through practice. 

Sociofact

the social structure or organization of a culture that influences social behavior, such as family, government, or educational systems

Menifact 

a core cultural belief, idea, or value, which includes intangible aspects like language, religion, and philosophies. 

Anglo-American Landscape

the cultural and built environment of English-speaking areas in North America, influenced by English and other European settlers.

Architectural Form

the study of how buildings reflect and are shaped by culture, environment, and history.

Traditional Architecture

building styles that reflect a culture's heritage, utilizing locally available materials and incorporating local traditions, values, and climate needs. 

Sequent Occupance

the concept that successive cultures leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape over time.

Accumulation

the acquisition or gradual gathering of something

Assimilation

the process where a minority culture adopts the customs, behaviors, and language of a dominant culture, often resulting in the loss of their original cultural identity. 

Cultural Adaptation

the process by which individuals or groups modify their cultural practices, beliefs, and behaviors to adjust to new or changing environmental or social conditions.

Cultural Convergence

the process where different cultures become more similar due to increased interaction, facilitated by factors like globalization, technology, and migration. 

Innovation Adoption

the process by which new ideas, technologies, and practices are accepted and integrated into a society, driving cultural diffusion and reshaping landscapes.

Glocalization

the process of adapting global products, ideas, and practices to local contexts, blending universal and local elements to create unique cultural experiences and local identities.

Core-Domain-Sphere Model

describes how a culture's traits are strongest in a central core, become less concentrated in the surrounding domain, and are most diffuse in the outermost sphere.

Cultural Ecology

studies how a culture's environment influences and is influenced by the group's social structures, practices, and beliefs.

Survey Systems

the legal methods used to establish property boundaries, which create distinct rural and urban settlement patterns.

Extinct Language

a language with no remaining native speakers, often a result of factors like cultural assimilation, colonization, and globalization.

Isolated Language

 a language that is unrelated to any other languages and thus not part of a language family, like Basque in Europe.

Language Family/Branch/Group

is the broadest category, a is a smaller division within a family, and is a further subdivision within a branch.

Standard Language

a form of a language used for official purposes like government, education, and mass media, often characterized by having a written grammar and a high-prestige status within a community. It is distinct from an official language>>, which is a language formally adopted by law, and a vernacular language>>, which is the everyday, native language of the common people.

Vernacular

a perceptual region defined by people's informal and subjective sense of cultural identity, rather than strict government boundaries.

Esperanto

a constructed international auxiliary language that serves as an example of a language created for global communication, not one that developed naturally

Isogloss

the geographic boundary that separates different linguistic features, such as a particular pronunciation, word, or grammar.

Lingua Franca

a common language used for communication between people with different native languages, often for trade, diplomacy, or migration.

Pidgin

a simplified, contact-based language that develops when people speaking different languages need to communicate for trade or other interactions, lacking a native speaker.

Trade Language

a language used for communication and trade between people who speak different native languages. 

Literary Tradition

a language that has a written form as well as a spoken one, often used for official and historical purposes. It is a key concept when studying language, culture, and development, as the existence of a written tradition can indicate a society's level of development and historical depth.

Indo-European Languages

the largest and most widespread language family in the world, with about 3.5 billion speakers.

Linguistic Diversity

the variety of languages within a given area, which is influenced by factors like geography, history, and globalization.

Accent

a distinct pronunciation of a language that indicates the speaker's geographic origin or social group.

Dialects

a regional or social variation of a language that is distinguished by differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.

Ideogram

a written symbol that represents an idea or concept directly, rather than a specific sound.

Mono/Bi/Multi-Lingual

means a person who speaks one language fluently, means speaking two languages fluently, and means speaking more than one language fluently.

Orthography

the conventional spelling system of a language

Creole

a fully developed language that emerges from the blending of two or more different languages, often arising from colonial or trade situations.

Branch

a large, fundamental division within a religion or language family

Denomination

a subgroup within a larger religion that shares a common name, tradition, and identity.

Sect

a relatively small, often exclusive group that has broken away from a larger, established religious denomination.

Interfaith/Intrafaith Boundary

an boundary is a border between different religions, while an boundary is a border within a single religion.

Reincarnation

the belief that after death, the soul or essence of a being is reborn into a new physical form, a concept closely linked to the idea of karma (the consequences of actions).

Secularism

the principle of separating religion from government, education, and other public institutions, promoting a worldview based on reason rather than religious doctrine

Hierarchical Religion

a religion with a well-defined geographic structure and a central authority that exercises a high degree of control, such as the Catholic Church. 

Diocese

a geographic district under the authority of a bishop, serving as a key example of a hierarchical religion organizational structure.

Universalizing Religion

a faith that seeks to appeal to and be adopted by people worldwide, actively spreading its message through missionary work and conversion efforts. 

Ethnic Religion

a belief system that is tied to a specific ethnic group and often to a particular geographic location, with examples like Hinduism and Judaism.

Cosmogony

a set of religious beliefs about the origin of the universe, a concept studied as a key component of religion and culture.

Syncretism

the blending of different cultural, religious, or linguistic traditions to create a new, unified system, often as a result of cultural interaction.

Animism

the belief that natural objects, places, and creatures all possess a spiritual essence or soul

Autonomous Religion

a religion without a central authority, where communities are self-sufficient and cooperate informally.

Fundamentalism

a strict adherence to a religion's basic principles, often involving a literal interpretation of sacred texts and a rejection of modern influences. 

Pilgrimage

a journey to a sacred place with a spiritual or moral purpose, which can have significant impacts on cultural landscapes and diffusion.

Hadj

the pilgrimage to Mecca, a mandatory religious journey for Muslims who are physically and financially able, as it is the fifth of the Five Pillars of Islam.

Sunni/Shia

a key example of a religious division with significant geographic, social, and political consequences, stemming from a 7th-century disagreement over who should lead the Islamic community after the Prophet Muhammad's death.

Sharia Law

an example of how religious law shapes a society's governance, legal systems, and cultural norms

Proselytic Religion

a universalizing religion that actively seeks to convert people from all over the world, unlike an ethnic religion which is tied to a specific group.

Cargo cult pilgrimage

a ritualistic movement that arose in Melanesia after exposure to Western goods, where followers perform actions like building mock airstrips and performing military-style drills to spiritually "call down" the return of material wealth, or "cargo". 

Shamanism

a form of tribal religion where a shaman serves as a religious leader and healer who can intercede with the spirit world.

Tribal/Traditional Religion

a category of ethnic religions, as opposed to universalizing religions.

Zionism

the movement for Jewish self-determination and the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the historical land of Israel. 

Zoroastrianism

relevant for its influence on the development of the Persian Empire, its role in shaping social order and ethics, its contribution to the spread of ideas along trade routes, and its impact on other major religions.

Shintoism

used to study cultural identity, syncretism, and the relationship between religion and the environment.

Jainism

a religion from India that can be analyzed through concepts like religions and their diffusion, cultural landscapes, and the interaction between religion and economics.

Sacred Space

a place with religious or spiritual significance, which can be a natural feature like a mountain or river, or a man-made structure like a church or temple.

Theocracy

a form of government where religious leaders hold political power and the state is governed by religious law.

Ghetto

a term for an urban area where a minority group is concentrated, often due to social, economic, or legal pressures like discrimination and segregation.

Geomancy

a system of beliefs and practices focused on harmony between humans and their environment, which can be related to AP Human Geography through concepts like cultural geography, placemaking, and sense of place. 

Feng Shui

an ancient Chinese practice that aims to create harmony and balance in a space by strategically arranging objects to influence the flow of energy, or "qi"

Exclave/Enclave

is a territory completely surrounded by another single state, while an is a part of a state that is geographically separated from the main territory by other states. 

Social Distance

the psychological distance between people of different social, cultural, or racial groups, and it can also be understood as a component of relative distance, which considers social, cultural, and economic connections between places rather than just physical space

Centripetal Force

factors that unify a state and promote social, political, and economic cohesion.

Centrifugal Force

factors that divide a state, weaken it, and lead to internal disruption and fragmentation. 

Cultural Shatterbelt

a region where multiple, often conflicting, cultures come into contact and clash, leading to fragmentation and internal conflict.

Ethnocentrism

the practice of judging other cultures by the standards of one's own culture, often leading to the belief that one's own culture is superior.

Blockbusting

an illegal real estate practice where agents use fear-mongering to convince white homeowners to sell their properties at low prices by falsely claiming that the neighborhood is declining due to an influx of racial or ethnic minorities.

Barrio

a Spanish-speaking neighborhood within a city, often characterized by strong cultural ties, and its study is called barrioization.

Plural society

a society where multiple distinct cultural, ethnic, or religious groups coexist within the same political unit, but they do not fully combine or integrate.

Segregation

the spatial separation of different racial, ethnic, or social groups, leading to unequal access to resources and opportunities

Apartheid

the system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination enforced in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s.

Ethnic Cleansing

is the systematic and forced removal of a less powerful ethnic group from a given territory by a more powerful one to create a region that is ethnically homogeneous.

Multiethnic state

a country with multiple ethnic groups coexisting within its borders, each with distinct cultural identities, languages, and histories.

Multinational state

a country containing two or more nations or ethnic groups with a history of self-determination that have agreed to coexist within a single state.

Balkanization

the process where a state breaks into smaller, often hostile, countries along ethnic, cultural, or religious lines.

Self-Determination

the principle that a nation has the right to govern itself and determine its own political status without external interference.

Nationalism

a feeling of loyalty and devotion to a nation, often based on shared cultural traits like language, religion, and customs.

Nation-state

a sovereign state where the boundaries of the territory coincide with the cultural identity of a single nation, which shares a common language, history, and culture.

Part nation state

is a nation that extends across more than one state.

Contagious diffusion

A rapid, widespread spread of an idea from person to person, like a viral video.

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of an idea through a structured system, such as from a top-down hierarchy or a global city to smaller areas.

Stimulus diffusion

The spread of an underlying idea, but not the entire trait, which is then adapted locally.