UC Scout AP Human Geography - Unit 1, AP Human Geography Unit 2 Test - Key Terms/Phrases, AP Human Geography - Unit 3

Geography

Geography is the study of humans and their effects on regions in the Earth’s surface.

Human geography

branch of Geography that explains how humans and their activities are influenced by the natural environment in which they are located.

Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration was a period in time when European explorers (mainly from Spain and Portugal) set out to discover new trade routes.

Sea

smaller than oceans, occur where land and oceans meet

Lake

a localized basin of freshwater surrounded by land

River

A naturally flowing waterway

Irrigation

Supplying land with water through a network of canals

Physical Geography

 branch of geography that studies patterns in the Earth’s natural features and processes. For example, physical geography studies the development of new landforms

Lithosphere

The lithosphere is between the upper mantle and the crust and is where tectonic plates are.

Latitude

Run horizontally over the earth

Longitude

Run vertically over the earth

North America

North America - North America is a continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres, surrounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

South America

a continent south of Central America

Great Lakes

a group of five freshwater lakes of Central North America between the U.S. and Canada. The largest group of freshwater lakes in the world

Panama Canal

A vast canal that allows ships to move from the Pacific Ocean into the Caribbean Sea

Greater Antilles

larger islands of the Caribbean Sea, includes Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico

Lesser Antilles

smaller islands of the Caribbean Sea, extend from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad and Tobago

Pampas

the coastal mediterranean climates with temperate grasslands in South America

Tierra Del Fuego

It is an archipelago that is located on the southward tip of South America's continent.

British Isles

The British Isles include the Republic of Ireland, Northern Island, England, Scotland, and Wales

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula includes Spain and Portugal and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea

Microstates

Microstates are countries with a smaller size and population.

Scandinavian Peninsula

The Scandinavian Peninsula includes the countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The climate includes long and snowy winters along with year-round precipitation

Baltic States

Baltic States includes the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

Balkan Peninsula

The Balkan Peninsula includes the countries of Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia.

Sahara

hottest and driest desert in the world

Sahel

a strip of dry grasslands on the southern border of the Saharathat serves as a transition zone between the desert and the savannas to the south.

Zanj

The Zanj is the historical name for the East African coast

Swahili

Swahili is a language that was derived from mixing native Bantu, Arabic (brought by sea traders), and Persian (brought by sea traders) languages together.

Afrikaans

A Dutch dialect spoken in South Africa

Middle East

The land masses between the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia

Anatolia

The inland area of Turkey very dry region

Levant

Eastern Cyprus, lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian peninsula

Caucasus

A region lies in the far north east of Turkey, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea

Mesopotamia

The present-day Mesopotamia is Iraq which lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which flow out into the Persian Gulf

Aramaic

An ancient semetic language related to Arabic and Hebrew

Zoroastrianism

A monotheistic religion originated in ancient Persia

Hejaz

The region of Saudi Arabia along the coasts of the Red Sea and includes two Mecca and Medina (two holy cities)

Central Asia

Edge between Russia to the west and China to the east

South Asia

Between Central Asia and the Indian ocean

Monsoons

A seasonal change (rainy season) of a region, often in the Indian Ocean

Southeast Asia

Eastward from South Asia

East Asia

North from Southeast Asia, the core of the continent

Australasia

A world region that spans the South Pacific Ocean

Polynesia

A term used to dente a triangular zone with Hawaii in the far north, New Zealand in the southwest, and the east islands scattered in the zone

Melanesia

The most populous one, lies between Micronesia and the Australian continent

Micronesia

The north west of Polynesia

Activity space

The space within which daily activity occurs

Place

Any space within certain boundaries that is of importance to all living things

Toponym

The specific name given to a portion of Earth's surface to reflect its political, cultural, economic, physical, or historical significance.

Place-specific cultures

A place-specific culture is a culture that is a specific culture that is unique to a location and is shaped and influenced by surrounding people, environment, and location

Homogeneous

areas or regions with uniform or the same features, generally language, ethnicity, religion, or a type of terrain

Formal regions

Defined space with definitive legal borders

Environmental region

A region defined by its climate, topography, precipitation, plants, and wildlife

Ecotone

A region of transition between one environmental region to another

Cultural region

an area in which a group of people share a similar culture and language

Functional region

Area with a central place, acting as the focus of origin that has some practical purpose for the given region

Market area

a region of a service where customers are likely to shop around due to reasons such as price or distance from their houses

Vernacular region

a region based on how the residents feel connected to their origin or the values they believe in.

Scale

The relationship of an object or place to Earth as a whole

Relative scale

The level of aggregation, or the level at which things are grouped together for study

Distance

The length of a path between two points

Linear distance

Absolute distance between two locations

Distance decay

the more the distance between two places, the more the interaction decreases

Tobler's Law

States that everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things

Site

The physical characteristics of a place, such as its elevation, circumference, or proximity to a body of water

Situation

The location of a place relative to other places

Space-time compression

The reduction in the time it takes for something to reach another place provided by communications and transportations

Core region

A core region is an area that is a center of human activity

Node

A central place in geography Nodes contain large amounts of activity centers for humans, cultures, economics, and transportation

Marketplace

Typically located at transportation nodes, which provide access to and from important economic points in an urban or in a region

Central business district

The area of a city where retail and office activities are clustered

Spatial patterns

distribution of clustered items such as geographical features

Clusters

when groups of things that are in common are grouped closely together

Land survey patterns

a method that divides land for ownership, development, or management

Metes and bounds

 type of land surveying where the boundaries of a property are defined through physical features, distances, and directions.

Townships and ranges

ype of land surveying where land is divided into a grid using lines of longitudes and latitudes. These lines run north-south and east-west. In the grid, each square that is created is usually divided into 6 square miles

Long line lots

quantity of items, objects, or individuals in every square unit area

Hierarchical diffusion

pread from core areas and then on to peripheries

Contagious diffusion (diseases)

usually following a linear trajectory that starts to spread from an origin and then goes onto major lines of transportation

Stimulus diffusion

based on demand from societal members

Expansion diffusion (the silk road)

point and diffuses all around in every direction

Relocation diffusion (ex. Roman Catholic missionaries)

point and diffuses all around in every direction

Map

a representation or model of land and sea that show physical features of the world

Spatial analysis

is studying and reviewing data such as geographic patterns, location, resource distribution

Topographic maps

contour lines that represent Earth’s elevation, terrain, vegetation, urban features, climate zones, landforms, etc

Thematic maps

represent specific themes such as population, density, wind patterns, precipitation, economic activities, etc

Choropleth maps

color-coding system and symbols to represent patterns in population, density, or just about any other statistical variable or factor.

Isoline map

an isoline map is where lines are used to connect two points to show areas with equal values in data or geographical features such as elevation

Dot density maps

Dot density maps use dots to represent the frequency or intensity of a particular event

Flow line maps

movement of people, goods, or information between locations

Cartograms

map’s shape of geographic areas to represent a specific variable

Projections

projections are methods that represent Earth’s curved surface on a flat map.

Models

simplified representations that allow us to understand complex systems and further analyze and predict.

Spatial models

analyze and understand how different components of geography interact with each othe

Concentric zone model

 a theoretical framework that was developed by Ernest W. Burgess. It describes urban land use patterns in cities as concentric rings that radiate from a central business district

Gravity model

The gravity model predicts interaction levels between two places based on their size and distance

Geographical Information System. (GIS)

A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays maps and models

Data layers

data layers refer to distinct sets of information that can be overlaid in geospatial visualization

GPS

Programs that rely on a network of satellites that each emit a measurable radio signal