APHUG Exam Review Vocab

Sequent occupance

The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape. This is an important concept in geography because it symbolizes how humans interact with their surroundings.

Cultural landscape

The human-modified natural landscape specifically containing the imprint of a particular culture or society.

Arithmetic density

The total number of people divided by the total land area. This is what most people think of as density; how many people per area of land.

Physiological density

The total number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture (how much land is being used by however many people)

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate (closely related to diffusion)

Diffusion

The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time

Relocation diffusion

The spread of an idea through physical movement of people from one place to another

Expansion diffusion

The spread of a feature from one place to another in a snowballing process

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places

Contagious diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population

Stimulus diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse

Absolute distance

Exact measurement of the physical space between two places

Relative distance

Approximate measurement of physical space between two places

Distribution

The arrangement of something across Earth’s surface

Environmental determinism

A doctrine that claims that cultural traits are formed and controlled by environmental conditions

Absolute location

Position on Earth’s surface using the coordinate system of longitude and latitude

Relative location

Position of Earth’s surface relative to other features

Site

The physical character of place— what is found at the location and why it is significant

Situation

The location of a place relative to other places

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 system.

Friction of distance

A measure of how much absolute distance affects the interaction between two places

Distance decay

The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin. Typically, the farther away one group is from another, the less likely the two groups are to interact.

Geographic information systems (GIS)

A set of computer tools used to capture, store, transform, analyze, and display geographic data

Global positioning system (GPS)

A set of satellites used to help determine location anywhere on Earth’s surface using longitude and latitude (generally on a portable electronic device)

Connectivity

The relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space. Geographers are concerned with the various means by which connections occur.

Accessibility

The degree of ease with which it is possible to reach certain location from other locations

Space

Refers to the physical or interval between two objects

Spatial distribution

Physical location of geographic phenomena across space

Size

The estimation or determination of extent

Scale

The representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction of generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance, indicated on a map as a bar graph, representation fraction, and/or verbal statement.

Formal region

A homogeneous region is an area within which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics. The shared feature could be a cultural value such as a common language.

Functional region

The area organized around a node or focal point. The characteristic chosen to define a functional region dominates at a central focus or node and diminishes in importance outward. This region is tied to the central point by transportation or communication systems or by economic or functional associations.

Vernacular region

(Perceptual region) This is place that people believe exists as a part of their cultural identity. Such regions emerge from peoples’ informal sense of place rather than from scientific models developed through geographic thought (generally an interval representation of a portion of Earth’s surface)

Possibilism

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

Place name

Often referred to as a place’s toponym (the name given to a place on Earth)

Age distribution (chart)

(Population pyramid) is two back-to-back bar graphs, one showing the number of males and one showing females in a particular population in five-year age groups. This is important because you can tell from the age distribution important characteristic of a country, whether high guest worker population, they just had a war or a deadly disease and more.

Carrying capacity

The largest number of people that the environment of a particular area can sustainable support

Cohort

Population of various age categories in an age-sex population pyramids

Demographic equation

This formula finds the change in population. The formula is found by doing births minus deaths plus (or minus) net migration. This is important because it helps to determine which stage in the demographic transition model a country is in.

Demographic momentum

This is the tendency for a growing population to continue growing after a fertility decline because of their young age distribution. This usually predicts a transition to the next stage in the demographic transition.

Demographic transition model

A sequence of demographic changes in which a country moves from high birth and death relates to low birth and death rates through time

Dependency ratio

The number of people who are too young or too old to work compared to the number of people in their productive years. This is important because this tells how many people each worker supports.

Doubling time

The number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase. This is important because it can help project the country’s population increase over the years and when its population will double.

Ecumene

The proportion of Earth’s surface occupied by permanent human settlement. This tells us how much of the land has been built up on and how much land is left for us to build on.

Epidemiological transition model

There is a distinctive cause of death in each stage of this demographic transition. This is important because it can explain how a country’s population changes so dramatically and more

Infant mortality rate

Infant mortality rate: (IMR) The annual number of deaths of infants under one year of age, compared with total live births. It is expressed as the annual number of deaths among infants among infants per 1000 births rather than a percentage.

J-curve

An exponential growth curve

Maladaptation

This is an adaptation that has become less helpful than harmful. This relates to human geography because it has become less and less suitable and more of problem or hindrance in its own right, as time goes on.

Thomas Malthus

Claimed that population grows at an exponential rate while food production increases arithmetically, and thereby that, eventually, population growth would outpace food production.

Morality

Can be expressed as infant mortality rate and life expectancy

Crude Birth Rate

This is the ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area; it’s expressed as the number of births in a year to every 1000 people alive in society

Neo-malthusian

Advocacy of population-control programs to ensure enough resources for current and future populations

Overpopulation

This describes when the resources of a particular area are not great enough to support that area’s current population

Agricultural density

The number of farmers per unit area of farmland

Population distributions

Three main properties are density, concentration, and pattern (used to describe how things and people are distributed across the Earth)

Population projection

Predicts the future population of an area or the world

S-curve

Traces the cyclical movement upwards and downwards in a graph

Sex ratio

The number of males per hundred females in the population

Standard of living

This refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people and the way they are distributed within a population

Sustainability

Relates to development that meets today’s needs without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs

Underpopulation

Refers to a sharp drop or decrease in a region’s population

Zero population growth

When the crude birth rate equals the crude death rate and the natural increase rate approaches zero

Chain migration

The migration even in which individuals follow the migratory path of preceding friends of family members to an existing community

Cyclic movement

Trends in migration and other processes that have a clear cycle

Distance decay

When the contact between two groups diminishes because of the distance between them

Forced migration

People removed from their countries and forced to live in other countries because war, natural disaster, and government oppression

Gravity model

Predicts that the optimal location of a service is directly related to thee number of people in the area and inversely related to the distance people must travel to access it

Internal migration

Permanent movement within a particular country

Intercontinental migration

Permanent movement from one country to a different country on the same continent

Interregional migration

Permanent movement from one region of the country to another

Rural-urban migration

Permanent movement from the suburbs or a rural area to the urban city area

Pull factors

Attractions that draw migrants to a certain place, such as a pleasant climate and employment or educational opportunities

Push factors

Incentives for potential migrants to leave a place, such as harsh climate, economic recession, or political turmoil

Transhumanence

Seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pasture areas

Voluntary migration

Movement of an individual who consciously and voluntarily decides to locate to a new area

Step migration

The gradual migration of an individual (e.g. From farm —> village —> town —> big city)

Territoriality

The connection of people, their culture, and their economic systems to the land

Shatterbelts

Areas where larger or global political or cultural divisions collide and cause conflict at a local scale (e.g. Cold War created shatterbelts in Europe, Korea, and Vietnam)

Chokepoints

Areas where the physical geography creates a narrow opening, like a strait, that it makes it difficult for trade or other travel between two points

Acculturation

Process of adopting only certain customs that will be to their advantage

Assimilation

Process of less dominant cultures losing their culture to a more dominant culture

Cultural ecology

The geographic study of human environmental relationships

Cultural identity

One’s belief in belonging to a group or certain cultural aspect

Culture

The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people’s distinct tradition

Core

Center of economic activity

Periphery

Outlying region of economic activity

Sequence occupancy

Refers to such cultural succession and its lasting imprint (proposed by Derwent Whittlesey)

Religion

The faithfulness to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual nature. This is important in human geography because it causes conflicts globally.

Buddhism

One of the largest universalizing religions. Fundamental ideas include that suffering originates from our attachment to life and to our worldly possessions. This region is prominent throughout Southeast Asia and China.

Animism

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and life. This is important to human geography because a lot of cultures around the world believe in animism.

Christianity

The world’s most widespread religion. Christianity is a monotheistic, universal religion that uses missionaries to expand its members worldwide. The three major categories or Christianity are Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox.

Confucianism

Developed by earlier Chinese man Confucius, it’s a complex system of moral, social, political, and religious thought. It has affected Chinese Civilizations tremendously.

Ethnic religion

A religion with a rather concentrated distribution whose principles are likely to be based on the physical characteristics of the particular location where its adherents are located. This is important to human geography because most religions start off as an ethnic religion.

Enclave

The name given to a state completely surrounded by another state

Exclave

A region of a country that is completely separated from the main body of that country, usually by borders of another country

Fundamentalism

The literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion

Haji

The pilgrimage to Mecca for Islam followers. It’s the fifth of the five pillars of Islam.

Hinduism

A cohesive and unique society, most prevalent in India, that integrates spiritual beliefs with daily practices and official institutions such as the caste system.

Interfaith boundaries

The boundaries between the world’s major fights, such as Christianity, Muslim, and Buddhism.

Intrafaith boundaries

The boundaries within a major religion