AP Vocabulary Terms

longlot survey system

distinct regional approach to land surveying found in the Canadian Maritimes, parts of Quebec, Luisiana, and Texas whereby land is divided into narrow parcels stretching back from rivers, roads, or canals

township and range system

A rectangular land division scheme to disperse settlers evenly across farmlands of the U.S. interior.

nation-state

A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality; Iceland and Japan

Gerrymandering

Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power; Illinois' 4th congressional district

formal region

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

Functional Region

An area organized around a node or focal point; newspaper distribution

GPS (global positioning system)

a system that accurately determines the precise position of something on Earth

GIS (geographic information system)

A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.

Stimulus Diffusion

a form of diffusion in which a cultural adaptation is created as a result of the introduction of a cultural trait from another place; i.e. Veggie burger

Indo-European languages

a family of several hundred related languages and dialects; most spoken language family

Romance languages

Any of the languages derived from Latin including Italian, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

centripetal force

An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state

centrifugal force

a force that divides people and countries

smart growth

Legislation and regulations to limit suburban sprawl and preserve farmland.

Greenbelt

A ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area.

Gentrification

A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low-income renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class owner-occupied area.

Redlinig

A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries.

Agglomeration

Grouping together of many firms from the same industry in a single area for collective or cooperative use of infrastructure and sharing of labor resources.

Industrial Revolution

A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods.

Central Place Theory

Theory proposed by Walter Christaller that explains how and where settlements in the urban hierarchy should be functionally and spatially distributed with respect to one another.

Topynym

The place name of a geographic location

Ethnicity

Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions.

Apartheid

Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

Great Migration

movement of over 300,000 African American from the rural south into Northern cities between 1914 and 1920

environmental determinism

the view that the natural environment has a controlling influence over various aspects of human life including cultural development

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.

subsistence agriculture

Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family

extensive agriculture

An agricultural system characterized by low inputs of labor per unit land area.

aquaculture (aquafarming)

The cultivation of seafood under controlled conditions

mixed-use development

development that combines housing and businesses in one area

urban renewal

Program in which cities identify blighted inner-city neighborhoods, acquire the properties from private members, relocate the residents and businesses, clear the site, build new roads and utilities, and turn the land over to private developers.

Shatterbelt

a region caught between stronger colliding external cultural-political forces, under persistent stress, and often fragmented by aggressive rivals (e.g., Israel or Kashmir today; Eastern Europe during the Cold War,...).

Devloution

The delegation of legal authority from a central government to lower levels of political organization, such as a state or country.

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)

Allows open trade between the US, Mexico, and Canada.

European Union

an association of European nations formed in 1993 for the purpose of achieving political and economic integration.

supranational organization

Organization of three or more states to promote shared objectives.

shifting cultivation

clearing forests to plant fields for a few years and then abandoning them

Vertical Integration

Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution

Agribusiness

The set of economic and political relationships that organize food production for commercial purposes. It includes activities ranging from seed production, to retailing, to consumption of agricultural products.

laws of migration

Developed by British demographer Ernst Ravenstein, five laws that predict the flow of migrants.

demograhic transition

The process of change in a society's population from a condition of high crude birth and death rates and low rate of natural increase to a condition of low crude birth and death rates, low rate of natural increase, and a higher total population.

antinatalist policies

seek to reduce birth rates and strongly encourage or require that women limit their fertility

Pronatalist

Policies that encourage people to have children

Dependancy Ratio

The number of people under the age of 15 and over age 64, compares to the number of people active in the labor force.

Ethnic Neighborhood

a neighborhood, typically situated in a larger metropolitan city and constructed by or comprised of a local culture, in which a local culture can practice its customs

sequent occupance

the notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape

Epidemiologic Transition

The process of change in the distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition

primate city

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

Desertification

Degradation of land, especially in semiarid areas, primarily because of human actions like excessive crop planting, animal grazing, and tree cutting.

Break-of-bulk point

A location where transfer is possible from one mode of transportation to another.

Population Pyramid

A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and sex.

Reapportionment

the process of reassigning representation based on population, after every census

thematic map

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

Cartogram

A special kind of map that distorts the shapes and sizes of countries or other political regions to present economic or other kinds of data for comparison.

Peters Projection

Introduced in 1974 by Arno Peters, and focuses on keeping landmasses equal in area. As a result, the shapes are distorted, and the map looks unfamiliar to viewers

Globalization

the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.

international division of labor

The process where the assembing procedures for a product are spread out through different parts of the world

Outsourcing

A decision by a corporation to turn over much of the responsibility for production to independent suppliers.

growth pole

industries designed to stimulate growth through the establishment of various supporting industries

Remittances

Money migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries, often in cash, forming an important part of the economy in many poorer countries

Pilgrimage

A journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes.

Hajj

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Ganges River

Located in India, this river is considered sacred to Hindus and is used for spiritual cleansing, funeral rites, and other Hindu rituals.

Sunni

A branch of Islam whose members acknowledge the first four caliphs as the rightful successors of Muhammad

lingua franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages

Creole language

a language that began as a pidgin language but was later adopted as the mother tongue by a people in a place of the mother tongue

Assimilation

the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another

Dialect

A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.

univeralizing religions

religions that actively seek converts to join their religion

ethnic religion

A religion with a relatively concentrated spatial distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location in which its adherents are concentrated.

Sikhism

Indian religion founded by the guru Nanak (1469-1539) in the Punjab region of northwest India. After the Mughal emperor ordered the beheading of the ninth guru in 1675, warriors from this group mounted armed resistance to Mughal rule.

Law of the Sea

Law establishing states rights and responsibilities concerning the ownership and use of the earth's seas and oceans and their resources.

EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone)

The 200 nautical miles from a nation's shoreline of protected resources and economic activity

Sovereignty

Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states.

Federalism

A system in which power is divided between the national and state governments

unitary system

A government that gives all key powers to the national or central government

ethnic cleansing

the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society.

Irredentism

a policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a country aimed at a group of its nationals living in a neighboring country

de facto segregation

Segregation resulting from economic or social conditions.

Tertiary Sector

the part of the economy that involves services rather than goods

Bulk-reducing industry

An industry in which the final product weighs less or comprises a lower volume than the inputs.

GNI (Gross National Income)

The value of the output of goods and services produced in a country in a year, including money that leaves and enters the country

HDI (Human Development Index)

a measure of a country's standard of living, including health and education

microcredit program

Program that provides small loans to poor people, especially women, to encourage development of small businesses.

comparative advantage

the ability to produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than another producer

economies of scale

a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production.

Special Economic Zones (SEZs)

specific area within a country in which tax incentives and less stringent environmental regulations are implemented to attract foreign business and investment

export processing zones (EPZs)

zones established by many countries in the periphery and semi-periphery where they offer favorable tax, regulatory, and trade arrangements to attract foreign trade and investment

GMO (genetically modified organism)

An organism that is created when scientists take one or more specific genes from one organism and introduce them into another organism thus creating a new version

sense of place

Feelings evoked by people as a result of certain experiences and memories associated with a particular place.

Interregional Migration

Permanent movement from one region of a country to another.

Sunbelt

states in the south and southwest that have a warm climate and tend to be politically conservative

Chain Migration

migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there

time-distance decay

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

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.

time-space compression

the rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies associated with globalization that transforms the way people think about space and time

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate

hierachical diffusion

The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places

Chloropleth Map

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