AP Human Geography Unit 1: 5 Themes of Geography

Place

unique location of a feature

Site

physical character of a place. ex. climate, soil, vegetation, water sources, latitude, elevation

Situation

the location of a place relative to other places

Region

Areas of unique shared characteristics

Formal Region

an area within which everyone shares a common characteristic

Functional Region

also called nodal region, an area organized around a central node or focal point

Perceptual Region

(vernacular) We know these regions exist, but we disagree on the definitions of said region

Scale

from local (small) to global (large), distribution of features

Density

the frequency of which something occurs in space

Concentration

the extent of a feature’s spread over space

pattern

the geometric arrangement of objects in space

Spatial Interaction

the connection between places

distance decay

the farther away one group is from another, the less likely the two groups are to interact

relocation

the spread of an idea through the physical movement of people

expansion

“snowballing process”

hierarchical

spread from person to person or nodes of authority or power/knowledge to other persons or places

contagious

the rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic through the population

stimulus

the spread of an item or idea; “inserted into an environment”