AP Human Geography Vocabulary

Flashcards of vocabulary and definitions from the lecture notes.

Census data

An official count of individuals in a population, conducted in the USA every 10 years.

Reference maps

Maps designed for people to refer to for general information about places, including political and physical maps.

Thematic Maps

Maps used as a communications tool to show how human activities are distributed (e.g., Cartogram, Choropleth, Dot Density, Isoline, Proportional Symbol).

Clustering

Spatial pattern where features or phenomena are grouped or bunched together.

Dispersal

Spatial pattern where features or phenomena appear to be distributed over a wide area.

Geospatial Data

All information, including physical features and human activities, that can be linked to a specific location.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

A computer system for capturing, storing, checking, and displaying data related to positions on Earth's surface.

Geographic Positioning System (GPS)

A system that uses data from satellites to pinpoint a location on Earth and help people find their way to a destination.

Remote sensing

The process of taking pictures of the Earth's surface from satellites or airplanes to provide a greater understanding of Earth's geography over large distances.

Absolute location

The precise spot where something is located.

Relative Location

Where something is in relation to other things.

Place

Refers to the specific human and physical characteristics of a location.

Distance Decay

The effect of distance on cultural or spatial interactions.

Time-Space Compression

The increasing sense of connectivity that seems to be bringing people closer together even though their distances are the same.

Sustainability

The goal of the human race reaching equilibrium with the environment; meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Natural Resources

A physical material constituting part of Earth that people need and value.

Scale of Analysis

How zoomed in or out you are when looking at geographic data (Global, Regional, National, State, and Local).

Formal Region

A region that is based on quantitative data that can be documented or measured (e.g., government areas).

Functional Region

A region based around a node or focal point (e.g., radio station broadcast area).

Vernacular (Perceptual) Region

An area that shares a common qualitative characteristic and is only a region because people believe it's a region (e.g., Midwest).

Ecumene

A term used by geographers to mean where people are settled on the Earth.

Arithmetic Density

The total number of objects in an area.

Physiological Density

Number of people supported by a unit area of arable land.

Agricultural Density

Ratio of the number of farmers to the amount of arable land.

Population Pyramid

A graph of the population of an area by age and sex.

Demography

The study of population.

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The number of live births per one thousand people in the population.

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The number of deaths per one thousand people in the population.

Doubling time

The time period it takes for a population to double in size.

Fertility

The number of live births occurring in a population.

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

The number of children who don't survive their first year of life per 1000 live births in a country.

Mortality

The number of deaths occurring in a population.

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI) / NIR

(birth rate - death rate)/10 - a positive NIR means a population is growing and a negative NIR means a population is shrinking

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children a woman is predicted to have in her child bearing years.

Antinatalist policies

When a country provides incentives for people to have fewer children.

Pronatalist policies

When a country provides incentives for people to have more children.

Malthus Theory

While population increases geometrically, food supply increases arithmetically.

Neo-Malthusian theory

Earth's resources can only support a finite population; pressure on scarce natural resources leads to famine and war, advocating for contraceptives and family planning.

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration

A set of generalizations about migration patterns including distance, step migration, and urban vs. rural migration.

Dependency ratio

The ratio of the number of people not in the workforce (dependents) and those who are in the workforce (producers).

Life expectancy

The average number of years a person born in a country might expect to live.

Push Factors

Forces that drive people away from a place (e.g., no jobs, slavery, political instability).

Pull Factors

Forces that draw people to immigrate to a place (e.g., jobs, to be near family).

Intervening opportunity

The presence of a nearer opportunity that diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away.

Intervening obstacle

A force or factor that may limit human migration.

Asylum seeker

A person seeking residence in a country outside of their own because they are fleeing persecution.

Chain migration

A series of migrations within a group that begins with one person who, through contact with the group, pulls people to migrate to the same area.

Step-migration

Migration to a far away place that takes place in stages.

Forced migration

When people migrate not because they want to but because they have no other choice.

Guest worker

A legal immigrant who is allowed into the country to work, usually for a relatively short time period.

Refugee

A person who flees their home country and is not able to return.

Transnational migration

Moving across a border into another country.

Voluntary Migration

People choosing to migrate (not being forced).

Brain drain

When the majority of educated or skilled workers leave an area to pursue better opportunities elsewhere.

Culture

Body of materials, customary beliefs, and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group or people.

Material Culture

The material manifestation of culture, including tools, housing, systems of land use, clothing, etc.

Nonmaterial Culture

Beliefs, traditions, celebration, thoughts, values and ideas of a group (religion, morals, attitudes, etc)

Cultural Relativism

The culture should be judged based on its own standards, not based on another culture.

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures based on the rules of your culture.

Taboo

Something that is forbidden by a culture or a religion, sometimes so forbidden that it is often not even discussed.

Cultural landscapes

The forms superimposed on the physical environment by the activities of humans (e.g., street lights, rice fields, churches, cemeteries).

Sense of place

A strong feeling of identity that is deeply felt by inhabitants and visitors of a location.

Language

A set of mutually intelligible sounds and symbols that are used for communication.

Gender

For our purposes in class, it refers to the cultural di erences in how men are treated di erently than women.

Relocation Di usion

A form of di usion where ideas being diffused are transmitted by their carriers as they migrate to new areas.

Expansion Di usion

The spread of an idea through a population in a way that the number of those influenced becomes continuously larger, including contagious, hierarchical, and stimulus di usion.

Lingua Franca

Mutually understood & commonly used by people who have di erent native languages

Colonialism

An effort by one country to establish settlement in a territory and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles on that territory.

Imperialism

The policy of extending a country’s influence through political or military force to areas already developed by an indigenous people.

Globalization

World interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

Cultural Convergence

Different cultures acquire common ideas, products, and traits, becoming more similar.

Cultural Divergence

Different parts of a cultural region are exposed to different influences and become dissimilar.

Language extinction

A language that is no longer spoken by anyone as their native language.

Dialect

Different forms of the same language used by groups that have some different vocabulary and pronunciations.

Language family

A collection of languages that are all descended from an original, proto-language.

Ethnic religion

A religion that is focused on a single ethnic group (often in a centralized area) that doesn't attempt to appeal to all people (e.g., Hinduism and Judaism).

Universalizing religion

A religion that attempts to appeal to all people and has a worldwide focus as opposed to a regional focus (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism).

Acculturation

Adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.

Assimilation

The process of a person or group losing the cultural traits that made them distinct from the people around them.

Multiculturalism

When various ethnic groups coexist with one another without having to sacrifice their particular identities.

Syncretism

The blending of traits from two different cultures to form a new trait.

State

Political unit with a permanent population and boundaries recognized by other states.

Nation

People who think of themselves as one based on a shared sense of culture and history and who desire political autonomy.

Nation-states

A state with a single nation (e.g., Japan, Iceland, Armenia).

Stateless nations

A nation who do not have their own independent state (e.g., Palestinians, Kurds, Hmong).

Multinational states

A state with two or more nations (e.g., France, USA, Mexico, China, Russia).

Multistate nations

A nation living across states.

Autonomous region

An area which governs itself but is not an independent country (e.g., Greenland, Hong Kong).

Semi-autonomous region

An area which can govern itself in certain areas, but does not have complete power to govern (e.g., Nunavut in Canada, Indian Reservations in the US).

Sovereignty

Final authority over a territory and the right to defend territorial integrity against incursion.

Self-Determination

The process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government.

Independence movements

An area that believes it should be its own country.

Devolution

The transfer of decision-making power from a central government to a lower level.

Choke point

A strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region (Panama Canal, Strait of Gibraltar).

Neocolonialism

Gaining indirect control of another country through economic or cultural pressures.

Shatterbelt

A region caught between stronger colliding external forces, under persistent stress, often fragmented by aggressive rivals (e.g., Israel/Palestine).

Territoriality

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

Boundary

Line that determines the limit of state jurisdiction.

Relic

Boundary that no longer exists as an international border but remnants of its existence remain (e.g., Berlin Wall).

Superimposed

Boundary that is drawn by powerful outsiders (colonizers) and ignores existing cultural groups (e.g., Africa).