AP Human Geo Exam Review

What are reference maps designed for?

Reference maps are designed for people to refer to for general information about places.

What are the two main types of reference maps?

Political and physical maps

What is a thematic map used for?

A communications tool to show how human activities are distributed.

Name 5 types of thematic maps.

Cartogram, Choropleth, Dot Density, Isoline, Proportional Symbol

What spatial patterns can be represented on a map?

Absolute and relative distance and direction, Clustering, Dispersal, Elevation

What are the four types of distortion that can occur in map projections?

Shape, Size, Distance, and Direction

What type of distortions does the Mercator map have?

Shape and directions are fairly accurate, but greatly distorted toward the poles.

What type of distortions does the Robinson map have?

Everything is distorted in small amounts.

What type of distortions does the Goode map have?

Continent sizes are accurately portrayed, but directions and distances aren’t accurate.

What type of distortions does the Gall Peters map have?

Shape of countries distorted, especially near the equator.

What are some methods of geographic data collection?

Geographic Information System (GIS), Geographic Positioning System (GPS), Remote Sensing, Field Observations, Media Reports, Travel Narratives, Policy Documents, Personal Interviews, Landscape Analysis, and Photographic Interpretation.

What does GIS stand for and what is it?

Geographic information system. A computer system for capturing, storing, checking, and displaying data related to positions on Earth's surface.

What does GPS stand for and how does it work?

Geographic Positioning System. This system uses data from satellites to pinpoint a location on earth and help people find their way to a destination.

What is remote sensing?

The process of taking pictures of the Earth's surface from satellites (or, earlier, airplanes) to provide a greater understanding of the Earth's geography over large distances.

What is absolute location?

The precise spot where something is located.

What is relative location?

Where something is in relation to other things.

What is space in geographic terms?

The extent of an area and can be in a relative and absolute sense.

What is place in geographic terms?

Refers to the specific human and physical characteristics of a location.

What is distance decay?

The effect of distance on cultural or spatial interactions.

What is time-space compression?

The increasing sense of connectivity that seems to be bringing people closer together even though their distances are the same.

What is a pattern, geographically speaking?

The geometric or regular arrangement of something in an area.

What is sustainability?

The goal of the human race reaching equilibrium with the environment; meeting the needs of the present without also leaving resources for future generations.

What are natural resources?

A physical material constituting part of Earth that people need and value.

What is environmental determinism?

How the physical environment caused (determined) social development.

What is possibilism?

The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to their environment.

What are scales of analysis used by geographers?

Global (Globalization), Regional, National, State, and Local.

What is a region?

A place larger than a point and smaller than a planet that is grouped together because of a measurable or perceived common feature.

What is a formal region?

A region that is based on quantitative data (that can be documented or measured); all government areas are this because they share a government.

What is a functional region?

A region based around a node or focal point. Example: Radio station broadcast area, DC metro

What is a vernacular (perceptual) region?

An area that shares a common qualitative characteristic; it's only a region because people believe it's a region (example: midwest).

What is the ecumene?

A term used by geographers to mean where people are settled on the earth (along rivers, fertile land, coast, etc.).

What physical factors influence population distribution?

People avoid areas too dry, too wet, too cold, too high

What cultural factors influence population distribution?

Populations will be concentrated in areas that have access to Education, health care, and entertainment opportunities.

What is arithmetic density?

Total number of objects in an area.

What is physiological density?

Number of people supported by a unit area of arable land (Land suited for agriculture).

What is agricultural density?

Ratio of the number of farmers to amount of arable land.

What does agricultural density reflect?

How developed a country is.

What can physiological density reveal?

Whether a country is considered overpopulated.

When does overpopulation occur?

When there are not enough resources in an area to support a population.

What is carrying capacity?

The maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain.

What is age/sex ratio?

Comparison of the numbers of males and females of different ages.

What is demography?

The study of population.

What is crude birth rate (CBR)?

The number of live births per one thousand people in the population.

What is crude death rate (CDR)?

The number of deaths per one thousand people in the population.

What is doubling time?

The time period it takes for a population to double in size.

What is fertility?

The number of live births occurring in a population.

What is infant mortality rate (IMR)?

The number of children who don't survive their first year of life per 1000 live births in a country.

What is mortality?

The number of deaths occurring in a population.

What is rate of natural increase (RNI) or Natural Increase Rate (NIR)?

(birth rate - death rate)/10 - a positive NIR means a population is growing and a negative NIR means a population is shrinking.

What is total fertility rate (TFR)?

The average number of children a woman is predicted to have in her child bearing (fecund) years.

What is the Demographic Transition Model?

A model that explains the transition from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates as a country or region develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system.

What is the epidemiological model?

Explains how society has developed and the change in how/why people are dying as we have progressed.

What is the Malthus Theory?

While population increases geometrically, food supply increases arithmetically (population will increase more quickly than food supply).

What is the Neo-Malthusian theory?

Earth's resources can only support a finite population. Pressure on scarce natural resources leads to famine and war. Advocates for contraceptive and family planning in order to keep population low and protect resources and prevent famine and war.

What are antinatalist policies?

When a country provides incentives for people to have fewer children (sometimes including punishments).

What are pronatalist policies?

When a country provides incentives for people to have more children.

What are some of Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration?

1. The majority of migrants go only a short distance. 2. Migration proceeds step by step (Step Migration). 3. Migrants going long distances generally go to large economic centers. 4. Each migration stream produces a compensating counter-stream. 5. Natives of towns are less migratory than those of rural areas. 6. Females are more migratory within their area of birth, but males migrate more frequently internationally. 7. Most migrants are young adults, families rarely migrate out of their country. 8. Large towns (Urban areas) grow more as a result of migration than natural increases (Births). 9. As infrastructure improves (business, roads, industries) migration increases with it. 10. The major directions of migration is from the rural (agricultural) to urban (centers of industry and commerce). 11. The major causes of migration are economic (seeking jobs and opportunity).

What is dependency ratio?

The ratio of the number of people not in the workforce (dependents) and those who are in the workforce (producers) - useful for understanding the pressure on the producers.

What is life expectancy?

The average number of years a person born in a country might expect to live.

What are push factors?

Forces that drive people away from a place (no jobs, slavery, political instability, no water).

What are pull factors?

Forces that draw people to immigrate to a place (jobs, to be near family).

What is intervening opportunity?

The presence of a nearer opportunity that greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away (Example: Finding a good paying job when migrating looking for economic options).

What is intervening obstacle?

A force of factor that may limit human migration (example: Coming into contact with a border, laws, language, natural feature that does not allow the migrant to continue their migration).

What is an asylum seeker?

A person seeking residence in a country outside of their own because they are fleeing persecution.

What is chain migration?

A series of migrations within a group that begins with one person who through contact with the group, pulls people to migrate to the same area.

What is step-migration?

Migration to a faraway place that takes place in stages.

What is forced migration?

When people migrate not because they want to but because they have no other choice.

What is a guest worker?

A legal immigrant who is allowed into the country to work, usually for a relatively short time period.

What are internally displaced persons?

A person forced to flee their home who remains in their home country.

What is a refugee?

A person who flees their home country and is not able to return.

What is transhumance?

Moving herds of animals to the highlands in the summer and into the lowlands in the winter.

What is transnational migration?

Moving across a border into another country.

What is voluntary migration?

People choosing to migrate (not being forced).

What is brain drain?

When the majority of educated or skilled workers leave an area to pursue better opportunities elsewhere.

What is culture?

Body of materials, customary beliefs, and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group or people.

What is material culture?

The material manifestation of culture, including tools, housing, systems of land use, clothing, etc.

What is nonmaterial culture?

Beliefs, traditions, celebration, thoughts, values, and ideas of a group (religion, morals, attitudes, etc.).

What is cultural relativism?

The culture should be judged based on its own standards, not based on another culture.

What is ethnocentrism?

Judging other cultures based on the rules of your culture.

What is a taboo?

Something that is forbidden by a culture or a religion, sometimes so forbidden that it is often not even discussed.

What are cultural landscapes?

The forms superimposed on the physical environment by the activities of humans. Example: Street lights, rice fields, churches, cemeteries, etc.

What are ethnic neighborhoods?

Neighborhood, district, or suburb which retains some cultural distinction from a larger surrounding area.

Who are indigenous people?

A culture group that constitutes the original inhabitants of a territory, distinct from the dominant national culture, which is often derived from colonial occupation.

What is an indigenous community?

The community of indigenous people living together working to keep their culture alive.

What is sense of place?

A strong feeling of identity that is deeply felt by inhabitants and visitors of a location.

What is language?

A set of mutually intelligible sounds and symbols that are used for communication.

What is religion?

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

What is ethnicity?

The fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.

What is relocation diffusion?

A form of diffusion where the ideas being diffused are transmitted by their carriers as they migrate to new areas.

What is expansion diffusion?

The spread of an idea through a population in a way that the number of those influenced becomes continuously larger. Includes contagious, hierarchical, and stimulus diffusion.

What is contagious diffusion?

Transmission of a phenomenon through close contact with nearby places, like diseases.

What is hierarchical diffusion?

An idea spreads by passing first among the most connected individuals, then spreading to other individuals (large connected cities to other large connected cities, then to smaller connected cities).

What is 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. In other words, it is the spreading of an underlying principle of an idea when the idea as a whole cannot spread to a particular culture.

What is a creole or creolized language?

A language that began as a combination of two other languages and is spoken as the primary language of a group of people.

What is lingua franca?

Mutually understood & commonly used by people who have different native languages.

What is colonialism?

An effort by one country to establish settlement in a territory and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles on that territory.

What is imperialism?

The policy of extending a country’s influence through political or military force to areas already developed by an indigenous people.

What is globalization?

World interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

What is time-space convergence?

The decline in travel time between geographical locations as a result of transportation, communication, and related technological and social innovations.

What is cultural convergence?

Different cultures acquire common ideas, products, and traits, becoming more similar.