AP Human Geography - Unit 4 - Vocabulary

State

In international relations, the formal term for a country.

Sovereignty

The power of a political unit to govern itself

City State

an independent city — and sometimes its surrounding land — which has its own government, completely separate from nearby countries

Nation

A group of people who share a common cultural heritage and have the desire to express their self determination.

Nation-State

A singular nation of people who fulfill the qualifications of a state. 

Multinational State

A state that contains more than one nation.

Autonomous Region

A defined area within a state that has a high degree of self-government and freedom from its parent state. 

Stateless Nations

Cultural groups that have no independent political entity of their own.

Multi-State Nations

When a nation has a state of its  own but also stretches across the borders of other states.

Natural Boundary

A boundary based on natural physical features that separate entities (rivers, mountains, deserts, etc.) 

Geometric Boundary

A boundary that is a straight line that does not account for natural features. It typically follows latitude or longitude lines.

Antecedent Boundary

A boundary drawn before a large population was present.

Subsequent Boundary

A boundary drawn to accommodate religious, ethnic, linguistic, or economic differences.

Relic Boundary

A boundary that no longer functions, but evidence of it still exists on the landscape.

Superimposed Boundary

A boundary drawn by outside powers.

Defined Boundary

A boundary established by a legal document, such as a treaty, that divides one entity from another.

Delimited Boundary

A boundary drawn on a map to show the limits of a space.

Demarcated Boundary

A boundary identified by physical objects placed on the landscape. 

Administered Boundary (Military Boundary)

A boundary enforced by a government or group, using laws, immigration regulations, and prosecution.

Definitional Boundary Disputes

Disputes that occur when parties disagree over how to interpret legal documents or maps that identify where a boundary is located.  

Locational Boundary Disputes

Disputes that occur when parties disagree about where a boundary should be located. 

Operational Boundary Disputes

Disputes that occur when parties disagree about how a boundary should function.

Allocational Boundary Disputes

Disputes that occur when a boundary separates natural resources that may be useful to both parties

Territoriality

A willingness by one person or a group of people to defend the space they claim. 

Self Determination

The ability of a state to decide its own future.

Imperialism

A variety of ways of influencing another country or group      of people, by direct conquest, economic control, or cultural dominance.

Colonialism

A particular type of imperialism in which people move into and settle on the land of another country.

The Berlin Conference

Representatives of the major European Empires met in Berlin in 1884-1885 to lay out claims on the continent of Africa. These claims were used to form the state boundaries in Africa that largely still exist today.

Decolonization

When colonized nations won their independence from colonizing forces.

Cold War

A period of diplomatic, political, and military rivalry between the U.S. and USSR that started at the end of WWII and continued until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

Satellite States

When one state is dominated by another, politically and economically.

Geopolitics

The study of the effects of geography on politics and relations among states.

Organic Theory

 States are born and need nourishment and living space to survive, which they get  by annexing territory from weaker states.  A state has to grow or it will cease to exist.

Heartland Theory

Land-based power is essential in achieving global domination. Controlling the Heartland (Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia) would lead to domination of the Rimland (area in Eurasia beyond Heartland) and command of the entire world. 

Rimland Theory

Power is derived from controlling strategic maritime areas of the world. Whoever controls the Rimland controls Eurasia and whoever controls Eurasia controls the world. 

Neocolonialism

A form of imperialism where more powerful states exert indirect control over less powerful ones.  

Shatterbelt

A region that suffers instability because it is caught between two powers that do not get along.

Choke Point

A strategic strait or canal which is narrow, hard to pass through, and has competition for use. 

Federal States

A country where governmental authority is shared among a central government and various other smaller regional authorities. 

Unitary States

A country where governmental authority is held primarily by the central government. 

Centripetal Force

A force that unites people together, often leading to the creation or strengthening of states.

Nationalism

A nation’s desire to create and maintain a state of its own. 

Centrifugal Force

A force that tends to break states apart or prevent them from forming.

Devolution

The transfer of political power from the central government to lower, subnational levels of government.

Subnationalism

When peoples’ primary allegiance is to a traditional group or ethnicity, rather than to the state.

Irredentism

Annexation of another state’s territory on the basis of shared culture, history or ethnicity.

Ethnic Cleansing

A process in which one more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes or eliminates another to form a homogenous state. 

Terrorism

Organized violence, usually for a political goal. 

Balkanization

The breaking of a state into smaller, often hostile, states along ethno-linguistic lines.

Annex

the internationally legal addition of new territory into an existing state.

Census

a survey of the total population of a region done by a governing body (done every 10 years).

Consequent boundary

A political boundary that is drawn to accommodate the cultural, ethnic, or linguistic differences among the people living in a particular area.

Democratization

the process of moving a nation's government from an authoritarian, meaning dictatorship system, to a democratic system.

Domino Theory

the idea that if one land in a region came under the influence of Communists, then more would follow in a domino effect.

Failed State

a state that is unable to perform the two fundamental functions of the sovereign nation-state in the modern world system.

Forward Capital

a symbolically relocated capital city usually because of either economic or strategic reasons.

Genocide

acts against specific groups of people.

Gerrymandering

the practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to favor a particular political party or group.

Microstate

a sovereign state having a very small population or land area, usually both.

Open Boundary

A boundary in which there are no establishments and one is free to move from one side to another.

Reapportionment

the process by which congressional districts are redrawn and seats are redistributed among states in the House.

Redistricting

the process of redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts to reflect changes in population.

Supranational

an alliance for cultural, economic, or military reasons.

Supranational Organization

where three or more countries form an alliance for cultural, economic, or military reasons.

UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

an international agreement that describes how sea-going vessels should interact with each other and with marine resources in regional waters and the high seas.