AP Human Geography Review Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from AP Human Geography Units 1-7.

Map Projections and Distortions

The four distortions of maps are shape, area, distance, and direction.

Cultural Landscape

Features of the Earth's surface that have been modified by human activity.

Space-time compression

The reduction in the time it takes to travel between two places due to new technologies.

Distance decay

The declining degree of acceptance of an idea or innovation with increasing time and distance from its origin.

Scale of analysis

The relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole.

Map scale

The relationship of a feature's size on a map to its actual size on Earth.

Chain migration

The migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there.

Brain drain

Large-scale emigration by talented people.

Internal migration

Permanent movement within the same country.

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

A model of demographic transition showing population change over time, with stages characterized by birth and death rates.

Natalist policies

Government policies that encourage large families and raise the rate of population growth.

Epidemics

A widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.

Guest-workers

Workers who migrate to more developed countries in search of higher-paying jobs.

Carrying capacity

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

Dependency ratio

The number of people under age 15 and over age 64 compared to the number of people active in the labor force.

1st wave of immigrants into the USA during 19th century

Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe.

Folk culture

Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.

Popular culture

Culture found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics.

Pidgin languages

A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca; used for communications among speakers of two different languages.

Lingua franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.

Creole language

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

Official language

The language adopted for use by a government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.

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.

Globalization

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.

Centripetal forces

Forces that tend to bind together a state.

Centrifugal forces

Forces that tend to divide a state.

Mercantilism

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought.

Gerrymandering

Redrawing legislative boundaries to benefit the party in power.

Reapportionment

The process of reallocating seats in a legislative body.

Redistricting

To divide or organize an area into new political or administrative districts.

Redlining

A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries.

Gentrification

A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a mostly low-income renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class owner-occupied area.

Devolution

The transfer of powers and responsibilities from the federal government to the states.

Supranationalism

A venture involving three or more national states political , economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives.

Unitary state

A state that places most power in the hands of a central government officials.

Federal state

An internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government.

Confederate state

An alliance of independent states.

Nation-state

A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.

Where was corn domesticated?

Corn was domesticated in Mexico.

Green revolution

A shift in agriculture away from small family farms to large, industrial-scale operations which started with the development of higher-yielding crops; especially wheat and rice.

Von Thunen’s model

A model developed by Johann Heinrich von Thunen that explains and predicts agricultural land use patterns in a theoretical state. Intensity of agriculture declines with increasing distance from the market.

Harris Ullman Multiple Nuclei model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are arranged around a series of nodes of activities.

Central Place Theory

A theory that explains the distribution of services, based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.

Primate city

A city that is the largest in its country or region, disproportionately larger than any others in the urban hierarchy.

Sun Belt cities

A region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest.

Bulk-gaining industry

An industry in which the final product weighs more or comprises a greater volume than the inputs.

Bulk-reducing industry

An industry in which the final product weighs less or comprises a lower volume than the inputs.

Maquiladora

A factory built by a U.S. company in Mexico near the U.S. border, to take advantage of much lower labor costs in Mexico.

Fordist production process

A form of mass production in which each worker is assigned one specific task to perform repeatedly.

Cottage industry

Manufacturing based in homes rather than in a factory, commonly found before the Industrial Revolution.

Post-Fordist production process

Adopts flexible production methods where goods are mass customized to suit market fragments.

Export-processing zone

Areas in developing countries that offer incentives and a barrier-free environment to promote economic growth by attracting foreign investment for export-oriented production.

Break of bulk point

The transfer of goods from one mode of transport to another.

Special economic zone

Specific area within a country in which tax incentives and less stringent environmental regulations are implemented to attract foreign business and investment..

Just in time delivery systems

Inventory strategy companies employ to increase efficiency and decrease waste by receiving goods only when they are needed in the production process, thereby reducing inventory costs.

Primary economic sectors

Economic activities that generate or extract raw materials from the natural environment, such as mining, logging, agriculture, and fishing.

Secondary economic sectors

Economic activities that transform raw materials into manufactured goods, such as factories.

Tertiary economic sectors

Economic activities that provide services, such as retail, transportation, and education.

Quinary economic sectors

Economic activities that involve high-level decision-making and research, such as government, science, and technology.

Four Asian Tigers

South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Core-periphery models

Models that describe the relationship between developed and developing countries, with the former exploiting the latter for resources and labor.

GDP

The total value of goods and services produced in a country during one year.

Agglomeration

A localized economy in which a great number of companies, services, and industries exist in close proximity to one another.

Economies of scale

Cost advantages associated with large-scale production.

HDI

A statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development.

Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth

A model that describes a country's progression through five stages of economic development: traditional society, preconditions for take-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and age of mass consumption.