Geography A - Unit Vocabulary

Acculturation

The change that results from two culture groups coming into contact with one another.

Accent

The particular pronunciation of a particular nation, location, or individual.

Adherents

Followers or members of a religion.

Affinity Segregation

When a particular ethnicity lives together by choice, even though there is no sanction against them living elsewhere within a city or region.

Agriculture

The deliberate modification of the Earth in order to obtain economic gain or sustenance.

Alexander von Humboldt

A German scholar known for publishing a five-volume work entitled Kosmos.

Animism

The belief that non-human beings also have spirits.

Antecedent Boundary

When a boundary is given to a region before it has been settled or populated.

Assimilation

A type of acculturation wherein a culture gradually adopts the language, beliefs, and behaviors of the host culture, and they also gradually lose their own original cultural identity

Biogeography

The study of the distribution of plants and animals

Carl Ritter

A German scientist who firmly believed that the physical nature of the earth affected how history unfolded.

Carl Sauer

Wrote The Morphology of Landscape, in which he defined the landscape as something that was developed from the natural environment by a social group.

Centrifugal Forces

Forces that pull countries apart.

Centripetal Forces

Forces that bind countries together.

Chemical Farming

The substitution of manure and humus with inorganic fertilizers that increase soil fertility.

Climatology

The study of the distribution of climate

Cluster Villages

Settlements with houses and buildings that are situated near one another and farms surround the area.

Cohort

A group of people that have shared a particular time or time span together

Constrictive pyramid

A type of population pyramid that shows a low percentage of young people.

Contagious diffusion

Involves a rapid and invasive diffusion of a trait through the culture group.

Colonialism

The acquisition, establishment, expansion, and maintenance of one territory by people from another territory.

Compact State

Countries that are relatively round in shape.

Crop Rotation

The practice of rotating the use of different fields each year from crop to crop in order to avoid exhausting the soil.

Cultural ecology

A subfield of human geography that studies how humans interact with and adapt to the ecological system.

Culture complex

The combination of related traits that identify a specific culture group.

Cultural differences

Broad categories or themes that geographers study, such as language.

Culture realms

The largest culture regions

Culture regions

Areas wherein a social group possesses all the behaviors and structures that identify it as a culture group.

Culture traits

Culture traits are those learned elements of culture such as language, clothing, and religion.

Demographic transition model

A model that is used to represent the shift from high fertility and mortality rates to low fertility and mortality rates as a country develops into an industrialized economic system.

Devolution

The transfer of power from a central government to a State, regional, or local authority.

Denomination

Groups of like-minded people who separated from a core body of believers to form their own subset of the religion.

Diffusion

The distribution or spreading of a culture and/or a culture trait.

Dispersed Settlement

A settlement that has a number of separate farmsteads that are scattered throughout the area.

Domestication

The process of making something commercialized for larger production

Ecumenism

The effort to seek unity and cooperation within the Christian church.

Emile Durkheim

Argued that totemism was the basic beginning of all other, more developed, forms of religion.

Environmental possibilism

The theory that a social group’s physical environment sets boundaries and limits to the social group, but that, ultimately, the social culture is not totally determined by the environment.

Enlightenment

Refers to a person’s “peak experience,” which consists of the discovery of exalted ideas, knowledge, and destinies

Ethnic religion

Religion that develops and attract people who are part of a specific cultural group of people, or who are from a specific location.

Ethnic group

Related to a culture group’s location, territory, or national origin.

Ethnic Cleansing

The practice whereby the winning group relocates the losing group by physically moving them or committing genocide against the group.

Ethnic Conflicts

Conflicts that are caused by different ethnicities struggling to become the dominant ethnic group

Ethnicity

Identity within a group of people that share the cultural traditions of a specific homeland.

Evangelize

To attempt to convert others into adopting a belief.

Expansive pyramid

A population pyramid with a broad base that indicates a rapid rate of growth in population due to a high proportion of children.

Expansion diffusion

Describes how the number of people that possess a particular culture trait increases.

Exclaves

Completely separate holdings that lie within another country.

Fertile Crescent

A region in western Asia that is considered to be the cradle of civilization.

Federal States

Governments that give their local territories autonomous power and do not have central control of the entire country.

Folk culture

The beliefs and customs of a cultural group that is relatively isolated from other culture group’s influences.

Forced Segregation

An area organized around a focal point.

Functional/nodal region

Boundaries that follow straight lines and do not have much to do with natural landscapes.

Geometric Boundaries

Boundaries that follow straight lines and do not have much to do with natural landscapes.

Geography

The field of human knowledge that studies the earth.

Geomorphology

The study of the distribution of landforms.

Graying population

A population where the people are typically older since the country has both a low birth rate and a low death rate.

Green Revolution

Refers to the developments, research, and technological advancements that increased agricultural production between the 1930s and the 1970s.

Hierarchical diffusion

Diffusion that moves from powerful or large items to small or weaker items.

Homogeneous region

An area with one or more shared characteristics.

Human geography

The scientific study of the location of people and activities across the earth’s surface and the reasons for their distribution

Hunter-gatherers

People who hunt animals, go fishing, and gather fruits, nuts, roots, berries, and other parts of plants that can be used as food.

Imperialism

An unequal relationship between territories that is based on domination and subordination.

Indo-European

The world’s largest language family

Inbreeding

The mating of close relatives

Irredentism

The theory, support, or process by which one State seeks to annex a territory governed by another State.

Isogloss

A particular geographical area sharing the pronunciation of a particular vowel or other language characteristics.

Language

A method of communicating feelings and ideas using conventional signs and gestures, particularly vocally.

Language family

Languages that are related and share a common ancestor.

Landlocked State

A State that is completely surrounded by other countries.

Lingua franca

A specific language chosen or used to bridge a communication gap between different cultures

Linear Village

A settlement that is small or medium in size and is formed around a transportation route.

Mortality rate

The measure of the number of deaths in a particular population in relation to the size of the population.

Multinational State

A sovereign state that is made up of two or more nations.

Multilingualism

Promoting or using multiple languages.

Nation-State

A territory that corresponds to an area that is occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.

Neolithic Revolution

When people first transitioned from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlements.

Part-Nation State

A nation that is dispersed across a region and is predominant in two or more states.

Paddy Field

A flooded parcel of land used to grow rice or other semiaquatic crops.

Pidgin

A simplified language that develops so that two or more groups can communicate when they do not have a common language.

Population density

The number of people living in a particular unit of space

Population distribution

The arrangement of the people within a particular unit of space

Population pyramid

Graphical illustrations that depict the distribution of various age groups within a particular human population.

Popular culture

Customs and beliefs that arise within a diverse culture realm that is made up of a variety of culture groups.

Polyglot

A multilingual person.

Racial Segregation

The daily life separation of people into racial groups

Racism

Refers to behavior that discriminates against a particular race. Such an attitude can also apply to ethnicity.

Rectangular State

A State that is relatively rectangular in shape

Relocation diffusion

When people relocate to a new area and they bring to the new area all of their cultural complexes.

Sangha

A community of monks or nuns who follow Buddhist beliefs.

Scale

The size of something (can be absolute or relative)

Seed Agriculture

Reproduces plants by planting seeds annually.

Selective Breeding

The mating of two animals that have desirable characteristics in order to create a better animal.

Second Agricultural Revolution

Took place between the 17th century and the end of the 19th century, and increased agricultural productivity.

Shaman

A person among an indigenous culture who is able to access the spirit world and mediate for the cultural group.

Site

The physical location of a place.

Situation

The relative location of a place

Shia Crescent

Artificial crescent-shaped geographical area that is populated mainly by Shia Muslims.

Slang

The use of expressions and words that are not considered standard to a language or a dialect.

Solemnities

Days that commemorate an event central to the Christian faith in the Roman Catholic denomination.