Geography Flashcards

Flashcards related to geography.

Isoline

Lines connect data points of the same value.

Cartogram

Show relative size of an area based on a particular attribute.

Choropleth

Uses colors or shading to represent categories of data.

Goode-Homolosine Projection

Avoids shape distortion and the restrictions of a rectangular map, but creates “interruptions”.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Captures, stores, organizes, and displays geographic data that can then be used to configure both simple and complex maps, layers.

Time-Space Compression

The world feels smaller today due to technology, modern transport, communication, and commerce.

Distance Decay

The farther away one thing is from another, the less interaction the two things will have.

Formal/Uniform Region

Has one or more shared traits, typically has defined boundaries and is well-recognized by many.

Environmental Determinism

Human behavior is largely controlled by the physical environment.

Environmental Possibilism

The environment places some limitations on human activity, but societies have a range of options on how to live in said environment.

Scale of Analysis

Different scales of analysis can lead to different conclusions. Large Scale is large amount of detail and small scale is small amount of detail.

Functional/Nodal Region

An area organized by its function around a focal point (node).

Site

The exact location/description of a city.

Situation

Relative location/connectivity, relates to its surrounding features, both human-made and natural.

Toponym

Name of a place.

Arithmetic Density

of people / TOTAL land

Physiological Density

of people / ARABLE land (farmable land)

Agricultural Density

of FARMERS / ARABLE land

Carrying Capacity

Maximum population an environment can sustain.

Overpopulation

A population is over the carrying capacity of the location they live.

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The number of births in a given year per 1,000 people in a given population

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The number of deaths of a given population per year per 1,000 people

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

Average number of children one woman in a given country will have during her childbearing years

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

The number of deaths of children under the age of 1 per 1,000 live births

Life Expectancy

The average number of years a person is expected to live

Sex Ratio

Proportion of males to females in a population

Dependency Ratio

The number of people under the age of 15 and over 65 who depend on the working population

Epidemiological Transition Model

Describes changing patterns of population distributions in relation to changing patterns of mortality, fertility, life expectancy, and leading causes of death.

Malthusian Theory

World Population is growing FASTER than world food supply

ProNatalist Policies

Policies that seek to have MORE kids

AntiNatalist Policies

Policies that seek to have LESS kids

Gravity Model

Predicts the interaction between two or more places

Friction of Distance

The longer a journey is, the more time, effort, and cost it will involve

Mobility

All types of movement from one location to another, whether permanent or temporary

Circulation

Temporary, repetitive movements that recur on a regular basis.

Human migration

PERMANENT movement

Forced Migration

Type of migration in which people are compelled to move by economic, political, environmental, or cultural factors

Transhumance

The seasonal migration from the highlands to the lowland pastures

Transnational migration

Immigrants to a new country retain strong cultural, emotional, and financial ties to their country of origin and may regularly return for visits

Repatriate

To return to one’s home country

Chain Migration

People move to a location because others from their community have previously migrated there

Step Migration

Series of smaller moves to get to the ultimate destination

Intervening Obstacles

Obstacle that hold migrants back, like needing a visa

Intervening Opportunities

Something that causes migrants to pause their journey by choice, like jobs available in a closer location

Brain Drain

The loss of trained or educated people to the lure of work in another (often richer) country

Artifacts

Visible objects and technologies that a culture creates

Sociofacts

Social Structures and organizations that influence social behavior

Mentifacts

Main, enduring elements of a culture that reflect its shared ideas, values, knowledge and beliefs

Ethnocentrism

The tendency of ethnic groups to EVALUATE OTHER GROUPS ACCORDING TO PRECONCEIVED IDEAS originating from their own culture

Cultural Relativism

The evaluation of a culture solely by its unique standards.

Cultural Landscape

Landscape that has been modified by humans, reflecting their cultural beliefs and values

Sequent Occupance

The notion that successive societies leave behind their cultural imprint

Ethnicity

The state of belonging to a group of people who share common cultural characteristics

Ethnic neighborhood/enclave

Cultural landscapes within communities of people outside their areas of origin

Ghetto

Neighborhood made up of a high concentration of one particular ethnicity or race

Language branch

Collection of languages within a family that share a common origin and were separated from other branches in the same family thousands of years ago

Language groups

Languages within a branch that share a common ancestor in the relatively recent past and have vocabularies with a high degree of overlap

Language family

Largest grouping of related languages and includes that Languages that share a common ancestral language from a particular hearth or origin

Pidgin Language

Starting to mix colonizer and Indigenous language

Creolized Language

Pidgin language becomes formalized

Lingua Franca

Common language used among speakers of different languages, especially in areas of trade, commerce, and diplomacy, like English.

Official Language

The language adopted for use by the government for conduct of business and publication of documents

Isogloss

Boundary line between two distinct linguistic regions

Cultural hearth

Where a cultural trait originates

Diffusion

The process by which a cultural trait spreads from one place to another over time

Colonialism

When a powerful country establishes settlements in a less powerful country for economic or political gain

Imperialism

When a country enacts policies to extend influence over other countries through diplomacy or force

Globalization

Process by which people across the world have become increasingly connected through travel, trade, and technology

Convergence

As cultures interact with one another, they become more similar, sharing and adopting one another’s ideas, innovations, and other cultural traits

Divergence

Conflicting beliefs or other barriers can cause two cultures to become less similar

Secular

Focused on worldly rather than spiritual concerns

Non-Secular

Relating to or involving religious or spiritual matters

Universalizing Religions

Appeal to a wide variety of people and are open to membership by all, regardless of a person’s location, language, or ethnicity. Global distribution

Ethnic Religions

Closely tied with a particular ethnic group generally in a particular region. Small distribution

Acculturation

People within one culture adopt SOME of the traits of another (usually dominant) culture, while still retaining their own distinct culture.

Syncretism

Traits from two or more cultures BLEND together to form a new custom, idea, value, or practice

Assimilation

The interaction of two culture results in one culture adopting ALMOST ALL of the customs, traditions, language, and other cultural traits of the other.

Cultural Appropriation

The borrowing or adoption of something as one's own when it did not originate from you or your culture

Self-determination

The right of all people to choose their own political status

State

A politically organized independent territory with a government, defined borders, and a permanent population

Nation

A cultural entity made up of people who have forged a common identity through a shared language, religion, heritage, or ethnicity, often all four of these

Nation State

The territory occupied by a group who view themselves as a nation is the same as the politically recognized boundaries of the state they call their own

Irredentism

Attempting to acquire territories in neighboring states inhabited by people of the same nation

Political geography

The study of the ways in which the world is organized as a reflection of the power that different groups hold over territory

Multinational State

States with more than one ethnicity, and these ethnicities have feelings of self-determination

Stateless Nation

People united by culture, language, history, and tradition but not possessing a state (a minority wherever they live)

Boundary

An imaginary line separating one political unit from another

Neocolonialism

The use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressure to control or influence other countries today, especially former dependencies

Choke point

A narrow, strategic passageway to another place through which it is difficult to pass

Shatterbelt

A region where states form, join, and break up because of ongoing, sometimes violent, conflicts among parties and because they are caught between the interests of more powerful outside states

Hegemony

World Dominance

Positional/Definitional Dispute

Dispute of Where is the line?

Territorial Dispute

Disagreement on who rightfully has the land

Resource/Allocation Dispute

Problems over the resources along the border area

Functional/Operational Dispute

What are the policies that govern the border? Disagreement over the laws that govern the border, like needing a passport to enter the US.

Reapportionment

Seats in the House of Representatives are reallocated to different states.

Redistricting

Redrawing a STATE’S INTERNAL LEGISLATIVE BOUNDARIES to determine voting districts for the U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (done after every Census and reapportionment)

Unitary state

An organization of state in which power is concentrated in a CENTRAL government, like CHINA

Federal state

An organization of a state in which power is SHARED between the federal government and its internal regional units (state govt.), like the UNITED STATES

Gerrymandering

Drawing congressional district lines in a way that benefits the party in power