APHUG-All Units

Reference Maps

Reference Maps

Designed for people to refer to for general info about a place.

• Political map

• Physical map

Thematic Maps

Communication tools. They tell us how activities are distributed.

Cartogram

• Distorts the size of regions based on their values

Choropleth

• Colors regions based on their values; generally, darker is a higher value while lighter is less.

Dot Density

• Places one dot for each value. All dots are the same size.

Isoline

• Connects data points with curved lines to form regions of equal value.

• Same concept as choropleth maps but more accurate since it’s not confined to political regions.

Proportional/Graduated Symbol

• The size of a given symbol (commonly a dot) represents the value of a region

• Larger generally means larger value.

Absolute Location:

Where on earth a specific thing is. Can be represented with coordinates.

Relative Location

Where something is in relation to another place.

Distance

How far two things are

Direction

Which way something is; north, south, east, and west.

Clustering

Grouping or bunched together; agglomeration

Dispersal

Distributed over a large area

Elevation

How high/low something is located on the land

• Mercator Map

  • Shape and direction are fairly accurate

  • Size is distorted towards the poles

  • Used for navigation

• Robinson Map

  • Compromise map; everything is distorted in small amounts.

  • Most accurate map

• Goode

  • Continent sizes are accurate

  • Direction and distance isn’t accurate

• Gall Peters

  • Shape of countries near the equator are distorted

  • Equal area projection

Geospatial Data

• All information including physical features and human activities

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Layers of data used to make maps; useful for finding correlations between places and other factors.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

• System of satellites used to pin point absolute location

Remote sensing

• The process of taking pictures of the earth’s surface remotely to provide a greater understanding of the Earth’s geography over large distances

Census data

• An official count of individuals in a population, telling the government about the demographics

  • Age

  • Gender

  • Race

Absolute Location

Precise spot where something is located; can be represented with coordinates.

Relative Location

• Where something is located in relation to another place.

Space

• Space: Physical space between two locations

Place

• Human and physical characteristics of a location

Sense of Place

Emotions and memories attached to a place

Distance Decay

• The affect of distance on interactions between two places; interactions decrease as distances increase.

Time-Space Compression

The increasing sense of connectivity as a result of globalization. Sense that distances are decreasing, despite them being the same.

Pattern

• The arrangement of something in an area

Sustainability

The goal of the human race achieving equilibrium with the environment; meeting our needs while also protecting the ability of future generations to meet theirs

Natural Resources

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

Environmental Determinism

Physical environments determined social development

Possibilism

The physical environment may limit some human actions, but people control their development

Scale

• The relationship between the distance on the ground and the corresponding distance on a map

  • Large Scale: Shows more detail

  • Small Scale: Shows less detail

Scale of Analysis

• How zoomed in or out you are while looking at geographic data; how is it “chunked”?

  • Local

  • National

  • Regional

  • Global

Region

• A place larger than a point and smaller than a planet; grouped together because of a measurable or perceived common feature

Formal Region

• A region based on quantitative data; also called “Uniform”

Functional Region

• A region based around a node or focal point; also called “nodal”

Perceptual Region

• A region that shares a common qualitative characteristic; only a region because people believe it is. Boundaries vary from person to person because it’s based on opinion.

Ecumene

• Where people are settled on the earth’s surface

  • Physical Factors: People avoid too dry, too wet, too high, and too cold

  • Cultural Factors: Populations will be concentrated in areas with access to education, health care, and entertainment.

  • Historical Factors: Where people lived in the past tends to determine where our populations are today

Arithmetic Density

• Arithmetic Density: Total number of objects in an area divided by the amount of land

  • Doesn’t tell us much on its own

Physiological Density

• People divided by arable land

  • Tells us if a country is considered overpopulated or not

Agricultural Density:

• Total number of farmers divided by arable land

  • Tells us how developed a country is

    • MDCs tend to have less people in agriculture, since they’re more mechanized

Consequences of Population Distribution

• Areas with larger populations have more power

  • Political: Greater control over laws and larger influence

  • Economic: Concentration of jobs, areas make more revenue

  • Social: Greater access to health care, better educational opportunities, greater cultural diversity

• As populations grow, we begin to alter our landscapes

Carrying Capacity

• The maximum size of the species that an environment can sustain

Overpopulation

• There are not enough resources for the population

Age/Sex Ratio

• Comparison of the numbers of males and females of different ages. Population structure is unique to each area due to their own unique history and current condition.

Population Pyramid

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

  • When a population is growing rapidly, it’s a pyramid.

  • When a population is stabilizing, it’s a rectangle

  • When a population is declining, it’s an inverted pyramid

Dependents

• People too young or old to work that depend on the working 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

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 births in a population

Mortality

• The number of deaths occurring in a population

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI or NIR)

• (Birth Rate - Death Rate)/10; A positive RNI means that the population is growing, while a negative RNI means that the population is shrinking.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

• The average number of children a woman is predicted to have in her productive years

  • Social Factors: Role of genders in society, family planning, age of marriage, traditional family sizes, etc

  • Cultural Factors: Religion, ethnicity, etc

  • Governments: Reproductive laws, natalist/antinatalist policies, etc

  • Economic Factors: Women in the workforce, affordability, etc

• The Demographic Transition Model (DTM) has 5 stages that indicate different levels of development

  • Stage One: High CBR and high CDR; no population growth

    • No countries today are in stage one

  • Stage Two: Declining death rate, high CBR; population growth

    • Niger, Mali, etc

  • Stage Three: Declining CBR and CDR; still population growth

    • Egypt, Mexico, etc

  • Stage Four: Low CBR and CDR; population beginning to peak

    • USA, Canada, etc

  • Stage Five: Low CDR, lower CBR; population decline

    • Germany, Japan, etc

ETM

• Epidemiological Transition Model (ETM): Corresponds with the DTM; what’s causing the deaths in a population as it evolves?

  • Stage One: Infectious disease and parasites cause the majority of human deaths

  • Stage Two: Improved sanitation and healthcare lowers death caused by infections and parasites

  • Stage Three: Deaths begin being caused by aging-related issues

  • Stage Four: Most deaths care caused by aging; peak population

  • Stage Five: Globalization and superbugs cause the reemergence of infections

Migration Transition Model

• Migration Transition Model

  • Stage One: No migration

  • Stage Two: Emigration, rural-to-urban

  • Stage Three: Suburbanization, Immigration

  • Stage Four: Suburbanization, Immigration

  • Stage Five: Suburbanization, Immigration

• Malthusian Theory: Populations grow exponentially but food production increases arithmetically (linear)

Neo-Malthusian Theory

• The earth can only support a finine number of people, and overpopulation can only be stopped by war and famine.

Cornucopian

• People will always find a way to produce enough food

Pronatalist Policies

• A country provides incentives for people to have more children

Antinatalist Policies

• A country provides incentives for people to have fewer children

Immigration Policies

• States can set up policies that make it easier or harder to migrate into their territory

Contraception

• Methods of preventing pregnancy

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration

• Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration:

  • The majority of migrants only go a short distance

  • Migration proceeds step by step (step migration)

  • Migrants going long distances usually go to large economic centers

  • Each migrating stream produces a compensating counter-stream

  • Natives of towns are less migratory than those of rural areas; people in urban areas are less likely to migrate

  • Females are more migratory within their area of birth, and males migrate more internationally

  • Most migrants are single young adults

  • Urban areas grow more as a result of migration than births

  • As infrastructure improves, migration increases

  • Most migration is rural-to-urban

  • Most migrants are seeking jobs

Dependency Ratio

• The ratio of the number of people not in the workforce (dependents) and those in the workforce (producers)

  • Understanding the pressure on the producers

Life Expectancy

• The average number of years someone is expected to live at birth

Push Factors

• Push Factors: Negatives; push people away from a place

  • Political instability, no jobs, slavery

Pull Factors

• Pull Factors: Positives; pull people towards an area

  • Jobs, freedom, stable government

Intervening Opportunity

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

Intervening Obstacle

A force or factor that limits human migration

Chain Migration

• 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

• Step-Migration: migration to a far away place that takes place in stages

Guest Worker

• Guest Worker: a legal immigrant who is allowed into the country to work, usually for a relatively short time period

Transhumance

• Transhumance: moving herds of animals to the highlands in the summer and into the lowlands in the winter

Transnational Migration

• Transnational Migration: moving across a border into another country

Forced Migration

• Forced Migration: when people migrate not because the want to but because they have no other choice

  • Internally Displaced Persons (IDP): A person forced to flee their home who remains in their home country

  • Refugee: A person who flees their home country and is not able to return

  • Asylum Seeker: A person seeking residence in a country outside of their own because they fleeing persecution

Migration Impacts

• Political Impact

  • Brain drain: when the majority of educated or skilled workers leave an area to pursue better opportunities elsewhere

• Cultural Impact - loss of culture or migrants bring in new languages

• Economic Impact - loss or gain of income dependent on the migrant flow

Culture

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

Material Culture

• Material Culture: The material manifestation of culture.

  • Artifacts

    • Tools, housing, systems of land use, clothing, etc.

Nonmaterial Culture

• Nonmaterial Culture:

  • Mentifacts

    • Shared ideas, values, and beliefs of a culture. Examples include religion, language, viewpoints, and ideas about right or wrong behaviour.

  • Sociofacts

    • Families, governments, education systems, sports organizations, religious groups

Cultural Relativism

• Cultural Relativism: The culture should be judged based on its own standards, not based on another culture.

Ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism: Judging other cultures based on the rules of your culture

Taboo

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

Cultural Landscapes

• Cultural Landscapes: The forms superimposed on the physical environment by people

  • Churches, buildings, etc

Ethnic Neighborhoods

• Ethnic Neighborhoods: Neighborhood that retains some cultural distinction from a larger surrounding area

Indigenous People

• Indigenous People: A cultural group that constitutes of the original people; distinct from the colonial, dominant population

Languages

• Language: A set of mutually intelligible sounds and symbols used to communicate

  • Language Family

    • Indo-European

  • Language Branch

    • Germanic

  • Language Group

    • West Germanic

  • Language

    • English

  • Dialect

    • American English

Religion

• Religion: The belief and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a god(s).

Ethnicity

• Ethnicity: The fact or state of belonging to a cultural group

Gender

• Gender: How men are treated differently than women

Relocation Diffusion

• Relocation Diffusion: Ideas are transmitted by their carriers during migration

Expansion Diffusion

• Expansion Diffusion: The ideas are spread through a population without the carriers moving.

  • Contagious: Transmission through nearby places, like a disease

  • Stimulus: The idea inspires one somewhere else

    • Ex. Beef-free burgers in Indian McDonalds

  • Hierarchical: Spreading among the most influential/largest people first, before spreading to others

  • Reverse Hierarchical: Diffusion up a hierarchy; common people to large influencers

Creole

• Creole: Language created by mixing two others; used as a primary language of many people and has grammar

Pidgin

• Pidgin: Simple language used for communication between two groups with different languages; evolves into creole