Cultural Geography Quiz 1 (From Book)

Will fix eventually

What is a Place?

A specific point on Earth, distinguished by a particular characteristic.

What is a Region?

An area of Earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics.

What is a Scale?

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

What is Space?

The physical gap or interval between two objects

What is a Connection?

Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.

What is Cartography?

The process of map making.

What does using a Map as a Reference Tool do?

Helps to find the shortest route between two places and avoid getting lost along the way.

What does using a Map as Communications Tool do?

Used to depict the distribution of human activities or physical features as well as for thinking about reasons underlying a distribution.

What is Geographic Information Science (GIScience)?

The analysis of data about earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies.

What is Geographic Information System (GIS)?

Captures, stores, queries, and displays the geographic data, produces more accurate maps.

What is Photogrammetry?

The science of taking measurements of Earth’s surface from photographs.

What is Remote Sensing?

The acquisition of data about Earth’s surface from a satellite orbiting Earth or from other long-distance methods.

What is Global Positioning System (GPS)?

A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth.

What is Geotagging?

The identification and storage of a piece of information by its precise latitude and longitude coordinates.

What is Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)?

The creation and dissemination of geographic data contributed voluntarily and for free by individuals.

What is Citizen Science?

Scientific research done by amateur scientists.

What is Participatory GIS (PGIS)?

Community-based mapping system.

What is a Mashup?

A map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service, such as Google Maps.

What is a Meridian?

An arc connecting the North and South poles

Longitude- The location of each meridian is identified on Earth’s surface according to this numbering system.

Parallel- A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.

Latitude- The numbering system to indicate the location of a parallel.

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)- Uses the Prime Meridian as a reference to tell time.

International Date Line- Follows 180 longitude.

Choropleth Map- A map where recognizable areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the data collected.

Graduated Symbol Map- Displays a graphic, such as a circle, multiple times that changes in size according to the value of data.

Isoline Map- Connects with lines all the places that have particular values.

Dot Distribution Map- Depicts data as points and shows how those points are clustered together or spread out over an area.

Cartogram- A map in which the size of a territory, such as a U.S. state, is proportional to the value of particular data.

Map Scale- The level of detail and the amount of area covered on a map is dependent on this.

Ratio- A ratio or fraction shows the numerical relationship between distances on the map and Earth’s surface.

Written- Describes the relationship between map and Earth distances in words.

Graphic- Consists of a bar line marked to show distance on Earth’s surface.

Four things affected by projections:

Shape- Could be more elongated than normal

Distance- May increase or decrease

Relative Size- Could be larger than normal.

Direction- From one place to another can be distorted.

Location- The position that something occupies on Earth’s surface.

Toponym- The name given to a place on Earth.

Site- The physical character of a place.

Situation/relative location- the location of a place relative to other places

Absolute location- describes the position of a place in a way that never changes, such as geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude.

Cultural Landscape- A combination of cultural features such as language and religion, economic features such as agriculture and industry, and physical features such as climate and vegetation.

Formal region/Uniform region- An area within which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics.

Functional region/Nodal Region- an area organized around a node or focal point.

Culture- The body of material possessions, customary beliefs, and social norms that together constitutes the distinct tradition of a group of people.

Post-Structuralist Geography- Examines how the powerful in a society dominate, or seek to control, less powerful groups, how the dominated groups occupy space, and confrontations that result from the domination.

Globalization- The scale of the world is shrinking in the ability of a person, an object, or an idea to interact with a person, an object, or an idea in another place.

Assimilation- The process by which a group's cultural features are altered to resemble those of another group.

Acculturation- The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups.

Syncretism- the combining of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature.

Distribution- The arrangement of a feature in space

Density- The frequency with which an object occurs in a defined space.

Concentration- The extent of an object’s spread over space

Pattern- The geometric arrangement of objects in an area.

Transnational Corporation- A corporation that conducts research, operates, factors, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters and principal shareholders are located.

Uneven Development- The increasing gap in economic conditions between regions in the core and periphery that results from the globalization of the economy.

Social Construct- An idea that has been created and widely accepted by the people in a society (gender for example).

Behavioral Geography- Emphasizes the importance of understanding the psychological basis for individual human actions in space.

Diffusion- The process by which a feature spreads across space from one place to another over time.

Hearth- A place from which an innovation originates.

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 is an additive 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.

Meme- Contagious diffusion through the internet or social media.

Stimulus Diffusion- The spread of an underlying principle even though a characteristic of it apparently fails to diffuse.

Distance Decay- The farther away someone is from another, the less likely the two are to interact.

Space-time Compression- The reduction in the time it takes for something to reach another place.

Network- A chain of communication that connects places.

Spatial Association- The relationship between the distribution of one feature and the distribution of another feature.

Biotic- Composed of living organisms.

Abiotic- Composed of nonliving or inorganic matter.

Atmosphere- A thin layer of gases surrounding Earth, at an altitude up to 690 Kilometers.

Climate- The long-term average weather condition at a particular location.

Hydrosphere- Composed of all the water on and near Earth’s surface.

Lithosphere- Encompasses the crust and portion of the mantle.

Biosphere- Encompasses all of Earth’s living organisms.

Ecosystem- A group of living organisms and the abiotic spheres with which they interact.

Ecology- The scientific study of ecosystems.

Resource- A substance in the environment that is useful to people, economically and technologically feasible to access, and socially acceptable to use.

Sustainability- The use of Earth’s resources in ways that ensure their availability in the future.

Sustainability Has 3 Pillars that it follows:

Environment Pillar

Economic Pillar

Social Pillar

Conservation- The sustainable use and management of natural resources to meet human needs such as food, medicine, and recreation.

Polder- A piece of land that is created by draining water from an area.

Cultural Ecology- The geographic study of human-environment relationships.

Environmental determinism- A nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.

Possiblism- The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.

Demography- The scientific study of population characteristics.

Carrying Capacity- The maximum population size of a species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the available resources.

Overpopulation- A situation in which the number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living.

Ecumene- The portion of Earth’s surface occupied by permanent human settlement.

Four of the least populated Areas

Sparsely Populated Cold Lands- Mainly because it is covered in thick ice

Sparsely Populated Mountainous Lands- Mainly because it is hard to traverse

Sparsely Populated Wet Lands- Receive too much water for crop production