AP Hug Chapter 1

Abiotic

Composed of nonliving or inorganic matter

Atmosphere

The thin layer of gases surrounding Earth

Biosphere

All living organisms on Earth, including plants and animals, as well as microorganisms

Biotic

Composed of living organisms

Cartography

The science of making maps

Climate

The long

Concentration

The spread of something over a given area (can be clustered or dispersed)

Connection

Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space

Conservation

The sustainable management of a natural resource

Contagious diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend

Cultural ecology

A geographic approach that emphasizes human

Cultural landscape

A combination of cultural, economic, and physical features that give a region its unified character

Culture

The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that constitute a group's distinct tradition

Density

The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area

Diffusion

The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time

Distance decay

The process by which contact decreases and eventually disappears as distance increases. This is much less common in contemporary society because of increased connections and space

Distribution

The arrangement of something across Earth's surface

Ecology

The scientific study of ecosystems

Ecosystem

A group of living organisms and the abiotic spheres in which they interact

Environmental determinism

The belief that the physical environment causes social development

Expansion diffusion

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

Formal region

An area in which everyone shares one or more distinctive characteristic (AKA uniform or homogeneous region)

Functional region

An area organized around a node or focal point (AKA nodal region)

Geographic information science (GIScience)

The development and analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies

Global Positioning System (GPS)

A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers

Globalization

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope

Greenwich Mean Time

The time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude

Hierarchical diffusion

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

Housing bubble

A rapid increase in the value of houses followed by a sharp decline in their value. When the housing bubble burst in the USA and Europe in 2008, it caused the first global recession.

Hydrosphere

All the water on and near Earth's surface

International Date Line

An arc that for the most part follows 180 degrees longitude. When you cross it going east towards America, you turn the clock back 24 hours. When you cross it going west toward Asia, you turn the clock forward 24 hours.

Lithosphere

Earth's crust and a portion of the mantle directly below the crust

Location

The position of anything on Earth's surface. Can be identified by name, site, and situation

Mental map

A representation of a portion of the Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about the place and where the place is located

Network

A chain of communication that connects places. For example, hub

Nonrenewable resource

Something produced in nature more slowly than it is consumed by humans

Pattern

The geometric/regular or irregular arrangement of a feature in a certain area

Place

A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic

Polder

Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area. They were first created in the 1200s but were mostly made by private developers in the 1500s and 1600s

Possibilism

The theory that the physical environment may limit human actions, but that people can adjust the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives

Preservation

The maintenance of resources in their present condition, with as little human impact as possible

Projection

A system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map. Can distort the shape of an area, the distance between areas, the relative sizes of areas, and the direction from one place to another.

Region

An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features

Regional (or cultural landscape) studies

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

Relocation diffusion

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

Remote sensing

The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long

Renewable resource

Something produced in nature more rapidly than it is consumed by humans

Resource

A substance in the environment that is useful to people, economically and technologically feasible to access, and socially acceptable to use

Scale

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

Site

The physical character of a place