AP Geo Terms

Cartography

The science of making maps

Contagious Diffusion

the rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population

Culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

Density

Mass per unit volume (not accurate)

Diffusion

The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time

Distance Decay

decline of activity or function with increasing distance from its point of origin

environmental determinism

the view that the natural environment has a controlling influence over various aspects of human life including cultural development

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of an innovation or an idea through a population in an area in such a way that the number of those influenced grows continuously larger, resulting in an expanding area of dissemination.

Formal Region (Uniform Region)

An area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics

friction of distance

The farther the distance of migration, the more money, effort, and time it will take

GIS (geographic information system)

A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.

GPS (global positioning system)

A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.

Gravity Model

A model which holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service

Hiearchical Diffusion

the pattern originates in a first order location then moves down to second-order locations and from each of these to subordinate locations at increasingly local scales

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate

Possibilism

The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment.

relocation diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.

scale

the relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole

site

physical characteristics of a place

situation

The location of a place relative to another place

Stimulus Diffusion

when an idea diffuses from its cultural hearth outward, but the original idea is changed by the new adopters

Topynym

The place name of a geographic location

vernacular region

A place that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.

Age Distribution

Percentage of the total population, or the population of each sex, at each age level.

Agricultural Density

The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture

Arithmetic Density

The total number of people divided by the total land area.

carrying capacity

Largest number of individuals of a population that a environment can support

Census

the official count of a population

Child Mortality Rate

Number of deaths per 1,000 children within the first five years of life

crude death rate

The number of deaths per year per 1,000 people.

crude birth rate

The number of live births per year per 1,000 people.

demographic transition

The process of change in a society's population from a condition of high crude birth and death rates and low rate of natural increase to a condition of low crude birth and death rates, low rate of natural increase, and a higher total population.

Demography

The scientific study of population characteristics.

dependency ratio

The number of people under age 15 and over age 64 compared to the number of people active in the labor force

Ecumene

The proportion of the earth inhabited by humans.

nonecumene

portion of the earth's surface that is uninhabited or temporarily uninhabited

Epidemiologic Transition

The process of change in the distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition

infant mortality rate

The percentage of children who die before their first birthday within a particular area or country.

life expectancy

The average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given current social, economic, and medical conditions. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live.

Malthus, Thomas

Was one of the first to argue that the worlds rate of population increase was far outrunning the development of food population. This is important because he brought up the point that we may be outrunning our supplies because of our exponentially growing population.

pro natalism

DEF - Concerned with promoting population growth.
EX - policies can be found in western Europe.

anti natalism

Concerned with limiting population growth.
EX - China has this kind of policy.

Natural Increase Rate

The difference between the number of births and number of deaths within a particular country.

Neomalthusians

a belief that the world is characterized by scarcity and competition in which too many people fight for few resources. Pessimists who warn of the global ecopolitical dangers of uncontrolled population growth

Overpopulation

The number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living.

Physiological Density

The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture.

Population Pyramid

A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and sex.

replacement fertility

average number of children born per woman at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next

sex ratio

The number of males per 100 females in the population.

total fertility rate

The average number of children born to a woman during her childbearing years.

zero population growth

A decline of the total fertility rate to the point where the natural increase rate equals zero.

Brain Drain

Large-scale emigration by talented people.

brain gain

large-scale immigration by talented people

Chain Migration

migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there

Diaspora

A dispersion of people from their homeland

Emigration

Migration from a location

Immigration

Migration to a new location

Forced Migration

Human migration flows in which the movers have no choice but to relocate.

Voluntary Migration

Permanent movement undertaken by choice.

Guest Workers

legal immigrant who has work visa, usually short term

Internal Migration

Permanent movement within a particular country.

International Migration

Permanent movement from one country to another.

Migration

Form of relocation diffusion involving permanent move to a new location.

intervening obstacle

An environmental or cultural feature of the landscape that hinders migration.

intervening opportunity

The presence of a nearer opportunity that greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away.

Migration Transition

Change in the migration pattern in a society that results from industrialization, population growth, and other social and economic changes that also produce the demographic transition.

migration stream

A constant flow of migrants from the same origin to the same destination

net migration

The difference between the level of immigration and the level of emigration.

push-pull factors

Conditions that draw people to another location (pull factors) or cause people to leave their homelands and migrate to another region (push factors)

Ravenstein's Laws of Migration

A set of 11 "laws" that can be organized into three groups: the reasons why migrants move, the distance they typically move, and their characteristics.

refugee

A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster

Remittances

Money migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries, often in cash, forming an important part of the economy in many poorer countries

step migration

Migration to a distant destination that occurs in stages, for example, from farm to nearby village and later to a town and city

time-contract workers

recruited for work but for only a fixed period of time by contract

Transhumance

The movements of livestock according to seasonal patterns, generally lowland areas in the winter, and highland areas in the summer.

Urbanization

An increase in the percentage and in the number of people living in urban settlements.

Suburbanization

The process of population movement from within towns and cities to the rural-urban fringe.

Counter urbanization

Net migration from urban to rural areas in more developed countries.

Acculturation

The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

artifact

an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest.

built environment

The man-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter to neighborhoods to the large-scale civic surroundings.

cultural convergence

contact and interaction of one culture and another

cultural landscape

the visible imprint of human activity and culture on the landscape

culture realm

A cluster of regions in which related culture systems prevail.

culture hearth

area where innovations in culture began and from which such cultural elements spread

culture trait

A single element of normal practice in a culture, such as the wearing of a turban.

Culture region

An area in which people have many shared culture traits

Custom

The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act.

Folk Culture

Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.

Globalization

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.

Glocalization

The process by which people in a local place mediate and alter regional, national, and global processes

habit

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual

material culture

the art, housing, clothing, sports, dances, foods, and other similar items constructed or created by a group of people

popular culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.

taboo

A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.

Uniform Landscape

the spatial expression of a popular custom in one location that will be similar to another

accent

the manner in which people speak and the way words are pronounced in different parts of the world

Creole

A pidgin language that evolves to the point at which it becomes the primary language of the people who speak it

Dialect

A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.