APHG Cumulative Vocab

Abiotic

Composed of nonliving or inorganic matter

Acculturation

The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distinct culture features.

Assimilation

The process by which a group's cultural features are altered to resemble those of another more dominant group.

atmosphere

A thin layer of gases surrounding Earth

behavioral geography

the study of the psychological basis for individual human actions in space

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

Citizen Science

scientific research by amateur scientists

climate

The long-term average weather condition at a particular location

Concentration

The spread of something over a given area.

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 throughout a population.

Cultural Ecology

Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

cultural landscape

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

Culture

The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together 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 diminished importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin

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 with which they interact

environmental determinism

A nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.

Expansion Diffusion

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

Formal Region (Uniform Region)

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

Functional Region (Nodal Region)

An area organized around a node or focal point

Geographic Information Science (GIScience)

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

Geographic Information System (GIS)

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

Geotagging

identification and storage of a piece of information by its precise latitude and longitude coordinates

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 (GMT)

the time in the 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

Humanistic Geography

The study of different ways that individuals form ideas about place and give those places symbolic meanings.

Hydrosphere

All the water at and near the surface of the earth

International Date Line

An arc that for the most part follows 180° longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas. When you cross the International Date Line heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When you go west (toward Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.

Latitude

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

Lithosphere

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

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

map

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

map scale

The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface.

Mashup

a map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service

Mental Map

A representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located.

Meridian

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

network

A chain of communication that connects places

nonrenewable resource

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

parallel

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

Participatory GIS (PGIS)

Community-based mapping, representing local knowledge and information.

Pattern

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

Place

A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic

Polder

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

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.

Poststructuralist Geography

The study of space as the product of ideologies or value systems of ruling elites.

Preservation

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

Prime Meridian

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

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.

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-distance methods.

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, is economically and technologically feasible to access, and is socially acceptable to use.

Scale

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

Site

The physical character of a place

situation

The location of a place relative to another place

Space

The physical gap or interval between two objects

space-time compression

The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems

Spatial Association

The relationship between the distribution of one feature and the distribution of another feature.

Stimulus Diffusion

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

Sustainability

The use of Earth's renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in ways that do not constrain resource use in the future.

Syncretism

the combining of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature

Toponym

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

Transnational Corporation

A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.

uneven development

The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.

Vernacular region (or perceptual region)

an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)

Creation and dissemination of geographic data contributed voluntarily and for free by individuals

Agnosticism

The belief that the existence of God can't be proven empirically

Animism

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.

Atheism

Belief that God does not exist

Autonomous religion

A religion that does not have a central authority but shares ideas and cooperates informally.

Branch

A large and fundamental division within a religion

Caste

The class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu is assigned according to religious law.

congregation

a local assembly of persons brought together for common religious worship

Cosmogony

A set of religious beliefs concerning the origin of the universe.

Denomination

A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.

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.

Fundamentalism

Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or congregation).

Ghetto

During the middle Ages, a neighborhood in a city set up by law to be inhabited only by Jews; now used to denote a section of a city in which members of any minority group live because of social, legal, or economic pressure.

Hierarchical religion

A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.

Missionary

An individual who helps to diffuse a universalizing religion.

Monotheism

The doctrine or belief of the existence of only one god.

Pilgrimage

A journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes.

Polytheism

the belief in or worship of more than one god.

Solstice

An astronomical event that happens twice each year, when the tilt of Earth's axis is most inclined toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun's apparent position in the sky to reach it most northernmost or southernmost extreme, and resulting in the shortest and longest days of the year.

Syncretism

Combining several religious traditions

Universalizing Religion

A religion that attempts to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location.

Creole(or creolized) language

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated

Denglish

A combination of Deutch(the German word for German) and English