Nature and Perspective: Basic Concepts

Flashcards based on lecture notes about Nature and Perspective and Basic Concepts.

Built Landscape

The landscape a group of people built

Cultural Landscape

The mark on an area from sequent occupance.

Arithmetic Density

People per unit of land

Physiological Density

People per unit of arable land

Relocation Diffusion

Spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another.

Stimulus Diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.

Hierarchical Diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.

Contagious Diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.

Hearth

A point of origin.

Absolute Location

Exact location on Earth described by global coordinates.

Site

The physical character of a place.

Toponym

The name given to a place on Earth.

Possibilism

The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.

Functional/Nodal Region

An area organized around a node or focal point.

Region

An area on Earth marked by a degree of formal, functional, or perceptual homogeneity of some phenomenon.

Distribution

The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.

Environmental Determinism

The study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories.

Relative Location

The position of a place relative to other places.

Natural Landscape

Physical landscape or environment that has not been affected by human activities.

Formal/Uniform Region

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

Perceptual/Vernacular Region

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

Scale

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

Size

The extent of something.

Distance Decay

The declining degree of acceptance of an idea or innovation with increasing time and distance from its point of origin or source.

Friction of Distance

A measure of the retarding or resisting effect of distance on spatial interaction. The greater the distance, the greater the "friction" and the less the interaction, or the greater the effort to overcome it.

Space

The physical gap or interval between two objects.

Time-Space Compression

The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.

Clustering

The state of being close together.

Dispersal

The state of being spread out.

Elevation

The height of a place above sea level or ground level.

Distortion

The action of deforming or misrepresenting a map.

Distance

The length of a path between two points.

Direction

The location of a point on Earth, expressed in terms of its angular distance north or south of the equator.