AP Human Geography Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes

Comprehensive vocabulary review flashcards covering AP Human Geography Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes, including population density measures, demographic models, fertility and mortality indicators, population policies, and migration concepts.

Population distribution

The spatial pattern or arrangement of where people live across Earth's surface.

Population density

A measurement of the number of people living in relation to a specific unit of land or resources.

Arithmetic population density

A measure of settlement intensity calculated as: $\text{Arithmetic density} = \frac{\text{Total population}}{\text{Total land area}}$.

Physiological population density

A measure of pressure on productive cropland calculated as: $\text{Physiological density} = \frac{\text{Total population}}{\text{Arable land area}}$.

Agricultural population density

A measure of farming technology and labor intensity calculated as: $\text{Agricultural density} = \frac{\text{Number of farmers}}{\text{Arable land area}}$.

Arable land

Land that is suitable and capable of being used for growing agricultural crops.

Clustered urban population

A concentrated settlement pattern that allows efficient delivery of transit, utilities, schools, and hospitals, but can create congestion, high housing costs, and infrastructure strain.

Dispersed rural population

A scattered settlement pattern with lower crowding and local agricultural access, but with higher delivery costs for utilities, broadband, and emergency services.

Population composition

The demographic structure and characteristics of a population, particularly its age cohorts and sex ratio.

Cohort

A group of individuals in a population who share a common demographic characteristic, such as being born in the same time period.

Dependency ratio

A measure comparing non-working age groups to the productive workforce, calculated as: $\text{Dependency ratio} = \frac{\text{Population age 0--14} + \text{Population age 65 and older}}{\text{Population age 15--64}}$.

Sex ratio

The proportion of males relative to females within a given population, commonly expressed as the number of males per 100 females.

Median age

The specific age that divides a population into two numerically equal halves, serving as a rapid indicator of aging or youthfulness.

Population pyramid

A bar graph visualizing the age and sex distribution of a population, displaying cohorts from youngest at the bottom to oldest at the top, typically with males on the left and females on the right.

Wide-base population pyramid

A pyramid shape with an expansive base and narrow top, indicating high crude birth rates, high youth dependency, and rapid population growth potential.

Rectangular population pyramid

A pyramid shape with relatively uniform cohort widths, indicating low birth rates, low death rates, long life expectancy, and slow or stable population growth.

Crude birth rate (CBR)

The annual number of live births occurring within a calendar year per 1,000 individuals in a population.

Crude death rate (CDR)

The annual number of deaths occurring within a calendar year per 1,000 individuals in a population.

Total fertility rate (TFR)

The average number of children a woman is projected to bear across her lifetime based on current fertility patterns.

Replacement fertility

The total fertility rate needed for a generation to replace itself without migration, generally accepted as approximately $2.1$ children per woman in low-mortality societies.

Infant mortality rate (IMR)

The annual number of deaths of infants under one year of age per 1,000 live births, frequently reflecting healthcare access, sanitation, and nutrition.

Life expectancy

The average expected duration of life, in years, for an individual from birth under prevailing mortality conditions.

Rate of natural increase (RNI)

The percentage rate of annual population change resulting strictly from births and deaths, calculated as: $\text{Rate of natural increase (\%)} = \frac{\text{Crude birth rate} - \text{Crude death rate}}{10}$.

Doubling time

The estimated number of years required for a given population to double in size at a constant growth rate, calculated as: $\text{Doubling time} = \frac{70}{\text{Annual growth rate (\%)}}$.

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

A theoretical model illustrating how national birth rates, death rates, and natural increase shift over time as a country undergoes industrialization, urbanization, and economic development.

DTM Stage 1 (Low growth)

A preindustrial stage characterized by high and fluctuating birth rates and death rates, resulting in low or unstable natural increase.

DTM Stage 2 (High growth)

A stage characterized by rapidly declining death rates due to improvements in food supply, sanitation, and medicine, while birth rates remain high, producing very rapid natural increase.

DTM Stage 3 (Moderate growth)

A stage characterized by declining birth rates driven by urbanization, women's education, and contraception, alongside low death rates, causing population growth to decelerate.

DTM Stage 4 (Low growth)

A postindustrial stage characterized by low birth rates, low death rates, high life expectancy, and stable or slow population growth.

DTM Stage 5 (Decline)

A proposed stage where total fertility drops below replacement level, crude death rates may slightly rise due to an aging population, and natural increase turns zero or negative.

Epidemiological Transition Model (ETM)

A model describing the evolutionary shift in primary causes of human mortality, progressing from infectious diseases and famines to chronic and degenerative conditions.

ETM Stage 1: Pestilence and famine

An epidemiological phase marked by high mortality rates caused by recurring infectious diseases, epidemics, malnutrition, and poor sanitation.

ETM Stage 2: Receding pandemics

An epidemiological phase where mortality drops quickly due to advancements in public sanitation, clean water supplies, vaccination, and improved nutrition.

ETM Stage 3: Degenerative and human-created diseases

An epidemiological phase associated with aging and industrial lifestyles where deaths from infectious diseases decline and chronic conditions like heart disease and cancer predominate.

ETM Stage 4: Delayed degenerative diseases

An epidemiological phase where medical treatments, surgical innovations, and specialized care delay mortality from chronic degenerative ailments, extending life expectancy.

ETM Stage 5: Reemerging infectious disease

A proposed epidemiological phase where infectious pathogens resurge or mutate due to globalization, antibiotic resistance, travel connectivity, and environmental degradation.

Malthusian theory

The demographic thesis positing that human population expands more rapidly than agricultural food output, eventually triggering checks such as famine, conflict, and disease.

Neo-Malthusianism

A modern adaptation of Malthus's theory warning that rapid population growth endangers not only food supplies, but also global water reserves, energy resources, land, and environmental ecosystems.

Boserup / technology-focused critique

The counter-Malthusian argument asserting that population pressure motivates human innovation, leading to agricultural intensification, mechanization, and expanded food production.

Demographic critique of Malthus

The counter-argument emphasizing that economic modernization, female literacy, urban living, and access to contraception naturally cause fertility rates to decline over time.

Pronatalist policy

A governmental program intended to stimulate birth rates and mitigate population aging through incentives such as paid parental leave, childcare subsidies, and tax deductions.

Antinatalist policy

A governmental initiative designed to curtail fertility and dampen rapid population expansion through family planning education, birth-control access, incentives, or legal mandates.

Demographic dividend

The potential economic acceleration realized when a country's working-age demographic expands significantly relative to dependent child and elderly cohorts, provided adequate employment and education exist.

Migration

The permanent or semi-permanent spatial relocation of individuals from one geographic place of residence to another.

Push factor

An unfavorable economic, social, environmental, or political circumstance that induces people to leave their origin location.

Pull factor

An attractive condition, such as economic prosperity, legal protections, safety, or educational opportunities, that draws migrants to a new destination.

Ravenstein's migration observations

Demographic generalizations indicating that most migrants travel short distances, long-distance migrants move toward large economic hubs, movement occurs in steps, and migration streams produce counterstreams.

Distance decay

The geographic principle that spatial interaction, communication, and movement between two locations decrease as the distance separating them increases.

Migration transition

A framework stating that the types of migration shifts as countries develop economically, moving from early rural-to-urban migration toward international mobility, suburbanization, and counterurbanization.

Step migration

A migration pattern characterized by a sequence of progressive moves in stages rather than a single long-distance journey, such as moving from a village to a small town and then to a capital city.

Chain migration

A migratory process where earlier migrants establish social and kinship networks that facilitate and attract successive waves of migrants from the same home community to the same destination.

Intervening obstacle

An environmental, political, economic, or legal barrier—such as a border control policy, visa requirement, ocean, or mountain range—that hinders migration.

Intervening opportunity

A closer, favorable alternative destination encountered along a migration route that fulfills a migrant's needs and halts or redirects their planned move.

Forced migration

Human relocation compelled by physical coercion, persecution, warfare, state policy, enslavement, or environmental catastrophes.

Voluntary migration

Relocation initiated by an individual's personal choice to pursue perceived social, educational, or economic opportunities, even when driven by hardship.

Refugee

A person who is forced to flee their country of nationality because of persecution, armed conflict, or violence, and crosses an international border seeking safety.

Internally displaced person (IDP)

An individual coerced to abandon their home due to conflict, human rights abuses, or natural disasters, but who remains within the territorial borders of their own country.

Internal migration

Human relocation that occurs entirely within the national boundaries of a single sovereign state.

International migration

The physical relocation of individuals from one nation-state across a sovereign international boundary into another.

Transnational migration

A migratory pattern where individuals move across national borders while actively maintaining social, financial, and cultural ties to their country of origin.

Seasonal migration

Temporary human relocation recurring predictably across specific times of the year, frequently tied to agricultural harvesting cycles or tourism demands.

Transhumance

The traditional seasonal herding and movement of livestock between distinct ecological zones, usually between higher mountain pastures in summer and lowland valleys in winter.

Brain drain

The disproportionate out-migration of highly educated, skilled, technical, or professional workers from an origin nation or region, creating local skill deficits.

Remittances

Monetary earnings transferred by migrant laborers in a destination country back to their families or communities in their home country.

Diaspora

A population scattered across external regions away from its geographic homeland while sustaining enduring cultural identity, traditions, and kinship ties.

Emigration

The act of departing from an origin country or region to establish permanent or long-term residence elsewhere.

Immigration

The act of entering and establishing residence in a destination country or region from an external origin.

Net migration

The demographic difference between the total number of immigrants entering an area and the total number of emigrants departing that area over a specified period.

Scale of analysis

The level at which geographic data is organized and examined (e.g., local, national, regional, or global), determining whether internal local disparities are revealed or concealed.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

A computer-based geospatial technology used to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, and display spatial data by layering thematic maps to identify uneven distributions and patterns.