AP Human Geography Review - Vocabulary

AP Human Geography flashcards on key vocabulary from the review packet.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Computer systems that can store, analyze, and display information from multiple digital maps or geospatial data sets.

Remote Sensing

This method gathers information from satellites that orbit the Earth.

Aerial Photography

The use of cameras or other sensors mounted on aircraft or satellites to collect digital images or video of the earth’s surface.

Toponymy

The task of defining and describing landscapes.

Geotagging

Location-aware apps that gather, store, and use locational data from computers or other personal devices.

Aerial Photographs

Professional images captured from planes within the atmosphere.

Geospatial Data

All the information that can be tied to specific locations.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

GPS receivers on the earth’s surface use the locations of multiple satellites to determine and record a receiver’s exact location.

Built-environment

The city's physical structure, including its roads, bridges, and buildings.

Sense of place

The unique architecture and vibrant community events that create a strong attachment for both residents and visitors.

Renewable

Energy sources like solar and wind power.

Environmental determinism

Suggests that the physical environment, particularly the climate and terrain, shapes human societies and cultural development.

Distance decay

The influence of the central business district diminishes as one moves further away from the city center.

Location

40N and 74W

Non-renewable resources

Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas that take millions of years to form.

Possibilism

Suggests that while the environment sets certain constraints, human culture and innovation can overcome these limitations to shape societal development.

Site

Selected based on its proximity to major transportation routes and its elevation above flood-prone areas.

Spatial interaction

Between distant regions, facilitating the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultural practices.

Situation

Located on the Potomac River, surrounded by the states of Virginia and Maryland.

Toponym

Reflects the city's historical connection to York in England.

Population Distribution

The pattern of human settlement- the spread of people across the earth.

Population Density

A measure of the average population per square mile or kilometer of an area.

Arithmetic Population Density

Calculated by dividing a region’s population by its total area.

Physiological Population Density

By dividing population by the amount of arable land, or land suitable for growing.

Agricultural Population Density

The number of farmers divided by the arable land.

Overpopulated

When a region has more people than it can support.

Voluntary migration

A movement made by choice

Immigrant

A person who migrates across an international border with the intention of staying permanently.

Emigration

When someone leaves a location

Step Migration

A process in which migrants reach their eventual destination through a series of smaller moves.

Counter-migration

Each migration flow produces a movement in the opposite direction.

Forced migration

Migration that is involuntary

Internally Displaced Person (IDP)

Migrants that move to another part of the same country due to political or environmental factors.

Refugee

Migrant that moves to another country due to political or environmental factors.

Asylum

Protection granted by one country to an immigrant from another country who has a legitimate fear if harm or death.

Internal Migration

Movement that occurs within a country.

Guest Worker Program

Policies that regulate the number of workers that can temporarily enter a country to work in a specific industry.

Xenophobia

Strong dislike of a specific culture.

Ethnic Enclaves

Neighborhoods filled primarily with people of the same ethnic group.

Cultural hearth

The origin of culture/ideas.

Diffusion

The spread of culture/ideas.

Traditional culture

The practice of maintaining well established customs.

Folk culture

A culture practiced by small, homogenous groups living in isolated rural areas.

Pop culture

A culture found in large, heterogeneous societies that share certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.

Stimulus Diffusion

when an underlying idea from a cultural hearth is adopted by another culture, but the adopting group modifies or rejects a trait.

Contagious Diffusion

when a cultural trait spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people.

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

when a trait diffuses from a group of lower status to a group of higher status.

Relocation Diffusion

when a trait is spread by those who migrate and carry the trait with them.

Hierarchical Diffusion

when a trait is spread outward from the most interconnected places or from the centers of wealth and influence.

Expansion Diffusion

when a trait is spread through exchange without migration.

Ethnic religion

Focuses on distinct ethnicity.

Universalizing religion

A religion with the intention of converting people.

Assimilation

happens when an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group.

Nativism

belief of protecting the native-born population of a country or cultural group.

Syncretism

the fusion or blending of two distinctive cultural traits into a unique new hybrid trait.

Acculturation

when an ethnic group moving to a new area adopts the values of the larger group while still maintaining elements of their own culture.

Multiculturalism

the coexistence of several cultures in one society.

Nation-state

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

Multi-national state

A state that contains more than one ethnicity.

Autonomous region

An area inside a state that has a high degree of self-government and freedom from its parent state.

Semi-autonomous region

An area inside a state that has a moderate degree of self-government and freedom from its parent state.

Stateless nation

A nation that does not have a state.

Multi-state nation

A nation that stretches across the borders of multiple states.

Subsequent Boundary

This boundary is typically created while the cultural landscape is evolving and is subject to change over time.

Delimited Boundary

This type of boundary is established by a legal document, such as a treaty, that divides one entity from another.

Demarcated Boundary

A boundary that is heavily guarded and discourages crossing.

Geometric Boundary

A straight line or arc drawn by people that does not closely follow any physical feature.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

This document was signed by more than 150 countries between 1973 and 1982, and defined four different zones of the sea.

Antecedent Boundary

This type of boundary preceded the development of the cultural landscape.

Defined Boundary

This type of boundary is drawn by a cartographer tp show the limits of a space.

Ethnographic Boundary

A type of subsequent border that takes into account already-existing cultural or physical landscape.

Superimposed Boundary

This type of boundary is drawn by outside powers and may have ignored existing cultural patterns.

Open Boundary

An unguarded boundary that people can easily cross.

Shatterbelt

A place located between two very different and contentious regions.

Relict Boundary

A boundary that has been abandoned for political purposes but evidence of it still exists on the landscape.

Demarcated Boundary

This type of boundary is identified by physical objects placed on the landscape.

Redistricting

The drawing of new electoral district boundary lines in response to population changes.

Gerrymandering

The drawing of electoral district boundary lines to grant political advantage to a particular party, individual, or group.

Devolution

The transfer of power from a central government to regional or local governments.

Ethnic Separatism

A desire for a region to be separated from the state.

Ethnic Cleansing

The forced removal of a minority ethnic group from a territory.

Terrorism

The systematic use of violence by a group in order to intimidate a population or government into granting its demands.

Irredentism

A political movement that aims to reunite a nation or reclaim lost territory.

Subnationalism

When people give their primary allegiance to smaller groups (ethnic groups, religions) rather than to the state.

Balkanization

The fragmentation of a state into smaller, hostile units along ethno-linguistic lines.

Subsistence Agriculture

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

Commercial Agriculture

Agriculture undertaken primarily to generate products for sale off the farm to consumers.

Intensive Agriculture

A form of agriculture that requires large levels of manual labor input, and/or large amounts of capital investment.

Extensive Agriculture

A form of agriculture that requires limited manual labor input, and/or modest levels of capital investment.

Intensive Commercial Agriculture

Agriculture that combines high levels of input (labor/capital) to maximize crop yields destined for the market.

Intensive Subsistence Agriculture

Agriculture that combines high levels of input (labor/capital) to maximize crop yields destined for the grower's consumption.

Extensive Commercial Agriculture

Agriculture that combines low levels of input (labor/capital) to maximize crop yields destined for the market.

Extensive Subsistence Agriculture

Agriculture that combines low levels of input (labor/capital) to maximize crop yields destined for the grower's consumption.

Feedlot (CAFOS)

A capital-intensive livestock operation in which many animals are kept in close quarters, and bred and fed in a controlled environment.

Intercropping

When farmers grow two or more crops simultaneously on the same field.

Double Cropping

Planting and harvesting a crop two times per year on the same piece of land.

Monoculture

Only one crop is grown or one type of animal is raised per season on a piece of land.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)

Confined spaces in which cattle and hogs have limited movement.

Slash-and-Burn Agriculture

An early agricultural practice that takes place when all vegetation in an area of forest is cut down and burned in place. The ash provides nutrients to the soil.

Terracing

Altering the landscape by building a series of steps into the side of a hill to create flat surfaces. A consequence of this process is mudslides.