Unit 1 Thinking Geographically Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering key geographical terms and concepts from Unit 1 Thinking Geographically.

Location

The position of anything on Earth's surface.

Place

A specific point on Earth, distinguished by a particular characteristic.

Formal (Uniform) Region

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

Functional (Nodal) Region

An area organized around a node or focal point.

Vernacular (Perceptual) Region

An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.

Assimilation

The process by which a group’s cultural features are altered to resemble those of another more dominant group.

Acculturation

The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distinct culture features.

Syncretism

The combination of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature.

Cultural Landscape

An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.

Scale

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

Expansion Diffusion

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

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.

Relocation Diffusion

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

Stimulus Diffusion

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

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.

Environmental Determinism

A 19th and early 20th century approach to the study of geography which argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences.

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate.

Projection

A system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map.

Distortion

The change in the shape, distance, relative size, or direction of an area when you flatten the earth’s 3D curved surface onto a 2D map.