AP Human Geo: Unit 1 Vocab

Absolute Location

Identifies a precise location/place, often through latitude and longitude of a certain place.

Cartogram

A map that distorts the shapes and sizes of countries or other political regions to represent the frequency or intensity of a particular phenomenon in that area.

Cartography

The science of drawing or making maps.

Centrality

A place where the location is between major points of influence; it has a good relative location.

Changing Scale

The ability to gain new information by making observations locally, regionally, and globally.

Choropleth Map

A thematic map that uses tones or colors to represent spatial data as average values per unit area.

Concentration

The spread of something within a given area; clustered or dispersed.

Contagious Diffusion

Distance-controlled spreading of an idea, innovation, or other item through a local population by person-to-person contact.

Cultural Landscape

The built environment of humans, including buildings, roads, and other structures humans have created.

Density

The number of any variable per unit area.

Distance Decay

The decline and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.

Distortion

The change in accuracy of shape, size, distance, or direction of a place when shown on a map.

Distribution

The arrangement of features in space; its three main properties are density, concentration, and pattern.

Dot Distribution Map

A map where dots are used to demonstrate the frequency or intensity of a particular phenomenon.

Environmental Determinism

The belief that physical geography and climate are the ultimate determining factors over the success or failure of humans in regions.

Expansion Diffusion

The general spread of ideas or material traits outward from a hearth, growing continuously larger.

Fieldwork

The work of a researcher collecting data and making observations in the natural environment about people, cultures, and nature.

Five Themes of Geography

An educational tool organizing major concepts of geography into location, human-environment, region, place, and movement.

Formal Region

An area in which everyone shares one or more distinctive characteristics; also called a uniform region.

Functional Region

An area organized around a node or focal point; also called a nodal region.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

A collection of computer hardware and software that allows spatial data to be collected, recorded, stored, retrieved, manipulated, analyzed, and displayed in layers or all at once.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

A satellite system used to determine the absolute location of places or geographic features.

Goode's Interrupted Projection

A map projection that accurately represents the shapes and sizes of landmasses by cutting through the oceans like an orange peel.

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas or material traits originate.

Hierarchical Diffusion

A form of diffusion in which an idea or innovation spreads by passing first among the most connected places or peoples.

Human Geography

The branch of geography focusing on the spatial analysis of people, their culture, and their imprint on the landscape.

Independent Invention

The concept that a trait was invented in different hearths without diffusion.

Isoline Map

A thematic map displaying lines that connect points of equal value, often used for weather or elevation.

Map Projection

A systematic transformation of locations on the surface of a round, 3-D Earth onto a flat piece of paper.

Mental Map

An individual's perception, impression, and understanding of how space is laid out in a region.

Mercator Projection

A projection useful for sea navigation that accurately shows shape and direction but distorts distance and size, especially near the poles.

Pandemic

An outbreak of a disease that spreads worldwide.

Pattern

The geometric arrangement of objects in space.

Perceptual Region

A region that exists only as an idea based on different traits to different people and therefore has unclear boundaries.

Peters Projection

A map projection that focuses on showing the true area or size of landmasses but distorts shape.

Physical Geography

The branch of geography focusing on Earth's natural features and processes through spatial analysis.

Possibilism

The geographic viewpoint that humans can overcome poor environments or develop despite the environment while recognizing that the environment can place limits or challenges on human development.

Proportional Symbol Map

A map where the size of a symbol varies depending on the frequency of the variable being studied.

Relative Location

The position of a place in relation to another place; sometimes called situation.

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of an idea through the physical movement or migration of people from one place to another.

Remote Sensing

The science of obtaining information about objects or areas from a distance, typically from aircraft or satellites.

Robinson Projection

A compromise projection that attempts to minimize several projection errors, such as shape, size, direction, or distance.

Scale

The relationship between the size of an object and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface.

Sense of Place

Feelings evoked by people as a result of certain experiences and memories associated with a particular place.

Site

The physical characteristics of a place, such as soil, hills, dryness, etc.

Spatial Perspective

The essential questions and intellectual framework that looks at "where" a specific phenomenon is located and searches for "why" the phenomenon is happening there.

Stimulus Diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle even though a specific characteristic is rejected.

Time Zones

24 regions or divisions of the globe approximately coinciding with meridians at successive hours from Greenwich, England; each is 15 degrees of longitude.

Time-Space Compression

The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place as a result of improved communication and transportation systems.

Winkel Tripel Projection

A compromise projection adopted by National Geographic Society in 1998 that minimizes distortion in size, direction, and distance.