AP Human Geography: The Cultural Landscape - Chapter 12 Vocabulary

Dispersed Rural Settlement

A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages.

Range

The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.

Rank-size Rule

A pattern of settlements in a country such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

Rural Settlement

A community where most people are engaged in agriculture.

Service

Any activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it.

Social Heterogeneity

People from varied racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds and with diverse lifestyle preferences.

Threshold

The minimum number of people needed to support a service.

Urban Settlement

A community where people are employed in secondary- and tertiary-sector jobs.

Urbanization

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

Basic Business

A business that sells its products or services primarily to consumers outside the settlement.

Business Service

A service that primarily meets the needs of other businesses, including professional, financial, and transportation services.

Central Place

A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area.

Central Place Theory

A theory that explains the distribution of services based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.

Clustered Rural Settlement

A rural settlement in which the houses and farm buildings of each family are situated close to each other, with fields surrounding the settlement.

Consumer Service

A business that provides services primarily to individual consumers, including retail services and education, health, and leisure services.

Economic Base

A community's collection of basic businesses.

Enclosure Movement

The process of consolidating small landholdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the eighteenth century.

Global City

A major center for the provision of services in the global economy.

Gravity Model

A model that 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.

Market Area (Hinterland)

The area surrounding a central place from which people are attracted to use the place's goods and services.

Media Market Area

An area where the population receives the same TV and radio station broadcasts and newspapers and consumes similar internet content.

Megacity

An urban settlement with a total population in excess of 10 million people.

Metacity

An urban settlement with a total population in excess of 20 million people.

Nonbasic Business

A business that sells its products primarily to consumers in the community where the business is located.

Periodic Market

A collection of individual vendors who come together to offer goods and services in a location on specified days.

Primate City

The largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.

Primate City Rule

A pattern of settlements in a country such that the largest settlement has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.

Public Service

A service offered by the government to provide security and protection for citizens and businesses.

Settlement

A permanent collection of buildings and inhabitants.