APHG Terms Review

Agricultural Density

The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture.

Arithmetic Density

The total number of people divided by the total land area.

Base Line

An east-west line designated under the Land Ordinance of 1785 to facilitate the surveying and numbering of townships in the United States.

Cartography

The science of making maps.

Concentration

The spread of something over a given area.

Connections

Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.

Contagious Diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.

Cultural Ecology

Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

Cultural Landscape

Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group.

Culture

The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people’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 diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.

Distribution

The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface.

Environmental Determinism

A nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography arguing that human activities are shaped by the physical environment.

Expansion Diffusion

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

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.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

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

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 in that time zone encompassing the Prime Meridian, or 0 degrees longitude.

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate.

Hierarchical Diffusion

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

International Date Line

An arc that mostly follows 180° longitude, used to indicate a time change when crossed.

Land Ordinance of 1785

A law that divided much of the United States into a system of townships to facilitate the sale of land to settlers.

Latitude

The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator.

Location

The position of anything on Earth’s surface.

Longitude

The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the Prime Meridian (0°).

Map

A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth’s surface or a portion of it.

Mental Map

An internal representation of a portion of Earth’s surface based on personal knowledge and impressions.

Meridian

An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.

Parallel

A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.

Pattern

The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area.

Physiological Density

The number of people per unit of area of arable land.

Place

A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character.

Polder

Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area.

Possibilism

The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people can adjust to it.

Prime Meridian

The meridian, designated at 0° longitude, passing through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.

Principal Meridian

A north-south line designated in the Land Ordinance of 1785 for surveying and numbering townships.

Projection

The system used to transfer locations from Earth’s surface to a flat map.

Region

An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.

Regional Studies

An approach to geography emphasizing relationships among social and physical phenomena in a specific 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.

Resource

A substance in the environment that is useful to people and is socially acceptable to use.

Scale

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

Section

A square normally 1 mile on a side, used in the Land Ordinance of 1785.

Site

The physical character of a place.

Situation

The location of a place relative to other places.

Space

The physical gap or interval between two objects.

Space-Time Compression

The reduction in time it takes to diffuse something due to improved communications and transportation.

Stimulus Diffusion

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

Toponym

The name given to a portion of Earth’s surface.

Township

A square normally 6 miles on a side, divided in the Land Ordinance of 1785.

Transnational Corporation

A company that conducts research and sells products in multiple countries.

Uneven Development

The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions.

Vernacular Region

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

Census

A complete enumeration of a population.

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The total number of live births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society.

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The total number of deaths in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society.

Demographic Transition

The process of change in a society's population from high crude birth and death rates to low rates.

Demography

The scientific study of population characteristics.

Dependency Ratio

The number of people under 15 and over 64 compared to those active in the labor force.

Doubling Time

The number of years needed to double a population at a constant growth rate.

Ecumene

The portion of Earth's surface occupied by permanent human settlement.

Epidemiological Transition

Distinctive causes of death in each stage of demographic transition.

Epidemiology

Branch of medical science concerned with disease incidence and control.

Industrial Revolution

A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed manufacturing processes.

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

The total number of deaths among infants under one year old for every 1,000 live births.

Life Expectancy

The average number of years an individual can expect to live.

Medical Revolution

Medical technology invented in Europe and North America that diffused to poorer countries.

Natural Increase Rate (NIR)

The percentage growth of a population in a year, calculated as crude birth rate minus crude death rate.

Overpopulation

When the number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment.

Pandemic

Disease that occurs over a wide geographic area affecting a high proportion of the population.

Population Pyramid

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

Sex Ratio

The number of males per 100 females in the population.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children a woman will have throughout her reproductive years.

Zero Population Growth (ZPG)

When the natural increase rate equals zero due to a decline in the total fertility rate.

Brain Drain

Large-scale emigration of talented individuals.

Branch (of a religion)

A large and fundamental division within a religion.

Chain Migration

Migration of people to a specific location due to relatives or members of the same nationality.

Circulation

Short-term, repetitive, or cyclical movements that recur regularly.

Counterurbanization

Net migration from urban to rural areas in more developed countries.

Emigration

Migration from a location.

Floodplain

The area subject to flooding during a given number of years according to historical trends.

Forced Migration

Permanent movement compelled by cultural factors.

Guest Workers

Workers who migrate to more developed countries in search of higher-paying jobs.

Immigration

Migration to a new location.

Internal Migration

Permanent movement within a particular country.

International Migration

Permanent movement from one country to another.

Interregional Migration

Permanent movement from one region of a country to another.

Intervening Obstacle

An environmental or cultural feature that hinders migration.

Intraregional Migration

Permanent movement within one region of a country.

Migration

Relocation diffusion involving a permanent move to a new location.

Migration Transition

Change in migration patterns resulting from industrialization and population growth.

Mobility

All types of movement from one location to another.

Net Migration

The difference between immigration and emigration levels.

Pull Factors

Factors that induce people to move to a new location.

Push Factors

Factors that induce people to leave old residences.