AP Human Flashcards

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Human-Environment Interactions

the connection between humans and the natural world

Cultural Ecology

the study of how humans adapt to the environment

Environmental Determinism

the belief that land forms and climate are the most powerful forces shaping human behavior and societal development

Landscape Analysis

the task of defining and describing landscapes

Time-Space Compression/Time Space Convergence

the shrinking "time distance" between locations because of improved methods of transportation and communication

Site

can be described as the characteristics at the immediate locations (soil type, climate, labor force, human structures)

Built Environment

the physical artifacts that humans have created that form part of the landscape

Spatial Interactions

a dynamic flow process from one location to another. movements of humans intangible items, goods

Field Observation

used to refer to the act of physically visiting a location, place, or region and recording, firsthand, information there

Distance-Decay Effect

the decrease in interaction between two phenomena, places, or the people as the distance between them increases

Spatial Association

the degree to which things are similarly arranged in space. the stronger the spatial distribution the more similar two phenomena are

Population Density

the number of people per square mile

Sense of Place

related to the concept of place. humans tend to perceive the characteristics of places in different ways based on their personal beliefs

Toponym

place names that provide insight into the physical geography, history, or culture of the location

Ghost Towns

abandoned settlements

Region

a group of places in the same area that share a characteristic

Spatial data

all the information that can be tied to specific locations

Absolute Distance

a distance that can be measured with a standard unit of length, such as a mile or kilometer

Absolute Location

the exact position of an object or place, measured within the spatial coordinates of a grid system

Accessibility

the relative ease with which a destination may be reached from some other place

Aggregation

to come together into a mass, sum, or whole

Anthropogenic

human-induced changes on the natural environment

Azimuthal Projection

a map projection in which the plane is the most developable surface

Breaking Point

the outer edge of a city's sphere of influence, used in the law of retail gravitation to describe the area of a city's hinterlands that depend on that city for its retail supplies

Cartograms

a type of thematic map that transforms space such that the political unit with the greatest value for some type of data is represented by the largest relative area

Cartography

the theory and practice of making visual representations of earth's surface in the form of maps

Chloropleth Map

a thematic map that uses tones or colors to represent spatial data as average values per unit area

Cognitive Map (Mental Map)

an image of a portion of earth's surface that an individual creates in his or her mind. can include locations and relationships among locations as well as personal perceptions and preferences of particular places

Complementarity

the actual or potential relationship between two places, usually referring to economic interactions

Connectivity

the degree of economic, social, cultural, or political connection between two places

Contagious Diffusion

the spread of disease, an innovation, or cultural traits through direct contact with another person or another place

Coordinate System

a standard grid, composed of lines of latitude and longitude, used to determine the absolute location of any object, place, or feature on Earth's surface

Cultural Ecology/Natural-Society Geography

the study of the interactions between societies and the natural environments in which they live.

Cultural Landscape

the human-modified natural landscape specifically containing the imprint of a particular culture or society.

Dot Maps

thematic maps that use points to show precise locations of specific observations and occurrences, such as crimes, car accidents, or births

Earth System Science

a systemic approach to physical geography that looks at the interaction between earth's physical systems and processes on a global scale

Environmental Geography

the intersection between human and physical geography, which explores the spatial impacts humans have on the physical environment and vice versa

Eratosthenes

the head librarian at Alexandria during the third century B.C.; one of the first cartographers. performed a remarkably accurate computation of earth's circumference. he is also credited with coining the term geography

Expansion Diffusion

the spread of ideas, innovations, fashion, or other phenomena to surrounding areas through contact and exchange

Fertile Crescent

the name given to the crescent-shaped area of the fertile land stretching from the lower Nile Valley along the east Mediterranean coast and into Syria and present-day Iraq where agriculture and early civilization first began about 8,000 B.C.

Formal Region

Definition of regions based on common themes such as similarities in language, climate, land use, etc.

Friction of Distance

a measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between two places

Fuller Projection

a type of map projection that maintains the accurate size and shape of landmasses but completley rerranges direction such that the four cardinal directions-north, south, east, and west-no longer have any meaning

Functional Region

definition of region based on common interaction, for example, a boundary line drawn around the circulation of a particular newspaper

Geographic Information System (GIS)

a set of computer tools used to capture, store, transform, analyze, and display geographic data

Geographic Scale

the scale at which a geographer analyzes a particular phenomenon, for example: global, national, census tract, neighborhood, etc. generally, the finer the scale of analysis, the richer the level of detail in the findings

GEOID

the actual shape of earth, which is rough and oblate, or slightly squashed. earth's diameter is longer around the equator than along the north-south meridians

Global Positioning System (GPS)

a set of satellites used to help determine location any-where on earth's surface with a portable electronic device

Gravity Model

a mathematical formula that describes the level of interaction between two places, based on the size of their populations and their distance from each other

Hierarchical Diffusion

a type of diffusion in which something is transmitted between places because of a physical or cultural community between those places

Human Geography

the study of the spatial variation in the patterns and processes related to human activity

Idiographic

pertaining to the unique facts or characteristics of a particular place

International Date Line

the line of longitude that marks where each new day begins, centered on the 180th meridian

Intervening opportunities

if one place has a demand for some good or service and two places have a supply of equal price and quality, the supplier closer to the buyer will block the other from being able to share its supply of goods and services. frequently used because transportation costs usually decrease with proximity.

Isoline

a map line that connects points of equal or very similar values

Large Scale

a relatively small ratio between map units and ground units. have higher resolution and cover small regions

Latitude

the angular distance north and south of the equator, defined by parallels.

Law of Retail Gravitation

a law stating that people will be drawn to larger cities to conduct their business since larger cities have a wider influence on the surrounding hinterlands

Location Charts

on a map, a chart or graph that gives specific statistical information about a particular political unit or jurisdiction

Longitude

the angular distance east or west of the Prime Meridian, defined by meridians

Map Projection

a mathematical method that involves transferring earth;s sphere onto a flat surface. this term can also be used to describe the type of map that results from the process of projecting. all map projections have distortions in area, direction, distance, or shape

Map Scale

the ratio between the size of an area on a map and the actual size of that same area on earth's surface

George Perkins Marsh

provided the first description of the extent to which natural systems had been impacted by human actions, Man vs. Nature physical geography as modified by humans

Mercator Projection

a true conformal cylindrical map projection, this projection is particularly useful for navigation since it maintains accurate direction, and it's distortion in area makes landmasses at the poles appear over sized

Meridian

a line of longitude that runs north-south. all lines of longitude are equal in length and intersect at the poles

Natural landscape

the physical landscape or environment that has not been affected by human activites

Nomothetic

concepts or rules that can be applied universally

Parallel

an east-west line of latitude that marks distance north or south of the equator

W.D. Pattison

he claimed that geography drew from four distinct traditions: the earth science tradition, the culture-environment tradition, the locational tradition, and the area analysis tradition

Perceptual Region

highly individualized definition of regions based on perceived commonalities in culture and landscape

Peters Projection

an equal-area projection purposely centered on Africa in an attempt to treat all regions of earth equally

Physical Geography

the realm of geography that studies the structures, processes, distributions, and changes through time of the natural phenomena of earth's surface

Preference Map

a map that displays individual preferences for certain places

Prime Meridian

an imaginary line passing through the royal observatory in Greenwich, England, that marks the 0 degrees line of longitude

Projection

the system used to transfer locations from earth's surface to a flat map

Proportional Symbols Map

a thematic map in which the size of a chosen symbol-such as a circle or triangle-indicates the relative magnitude of some statistical value for a given geographic region

Ptolemy

roman geographer-astronomer, author of guide to geography, which included maps containing a grid system of latitude and longitude

Qualitative Data

data associated with a more humanistic approach to geography, often collected through interviews, empirical observations, or the interpretation of texts, artwork, old maps, and archives

Quantitative Data

data associated with mathematical models and statistical techniques used to analyze spatial location and association

Reference Map

a map type that provides information for a particular place, making it useful for finding landmarks and for navigation

Region

a territory that encompasses many places that share similar physical and/or cultural attributes

Regional Geography

the study of geographical regions

Relative Distance

a measure of distance that includes the costs of overcoming the friction of absolute distance separating two places. often describes the amount of social, cultural, or economic connectivity between two places

Relative Location

the position of a place relative to the places around it

Relocating Diffusion

the diffusion of ideas, innovations, behaviors, and so on from one place to another through migration

Remote Sensing

the observation and mathematical measurement of earth's surface using aircraft and satellites. include photographic images, thermal images, multi-spectral scanners, and radar images

Resolution

a map's smallest discernable unit.

Robinson Projection

a projection that attempts to balance several possible projection errors. it does not maintain area, shape, distance, or direction completely accurately, but it minimizes errors in each

Carl Sauer

geographer from the university of California at Berkeley who defined the concept of cultural landscape as the fundamental unit of geographical analysis. this landscape results from the interaction between humans and the physical environment. argued that virtually no landscape has escaped alteration by human activities

Small Scale

a map scale ratio in which the ratio of units on the map to units on earth is quite small. usually depict large areas

Spatial Diffusion

the ways in which phenomena, such as technological innovations, cultural trends, or even outbreaks of disease, travel over space

Spatial Perspective

an intellectual framework that looks at the particular locations of a specific phenomenon, how and why that phenomenon is where it is, and finally, how it is spatially related to phenomenon in other palces

Sustainability

the concept of using earth's resources in such a way that they provide for people's needs in the present without diminishing earth's ability to provide for future generations

Thematic Layers

individual maps of specific features that are overlaid on one another in a geographical information system to understand and analyze a spatial relationship

Thematic Map

a type of map that displays one or more variables-such as population, or income level-within a specific area

Topographic Map

maps that use isolines to represent constant elevations.

Topological Space

the amount of connectivity between places regardless of the absolute distance separating them

Visualization

use of sophisticated software to create dynamic computer maps, some of which are three dimensional and interactive.

Transferability

the costs involved in moving goods from one place to another

Quantitative Revolution

a period in human geography associated with the widespread adoption of mathematical models and statistical techniques