semester one vocab, trying to understand AP human geography

Absolute location

The exact position of a place on Earth, usually given in latitude and longitude

Relative location

The position of a place in relation to other locations

Geographic scale

The level at which a geographic analysis is conducted, from local to global

Vernacular/perceptual regions

Regions defined by people’s perceptions or cultural identity rather than strict boundaries

Formal regions

Areas defined by official boundaries or shared characteristics

Functional regions

Areas organized around a central point or function, like a city and its surrounding area

Site

The physical characteristics of a place, such as terrain, climate, or resources

Situation

The location of a place relative to other places or its surroundings

Environmental determinism

The belief that the environment controls human activities and development

Possibilism

The belief that humans can adjust and adapt to the environment to achieve development

Human Development Index (HDI)

A measure of a country’s average achievements in health, education, and standard of living

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

A measure of gender-based disparities in health, education, and economic participation

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The total value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year

Gross National Product (GNP)

The total value of goods and services produced by a country’s residents, including abroad

Natural Increase Rate (NIR)

The percentage by which a population grows in a year, calculated as birth rate minus death rate

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The number of deaths per 1,000 people in a year

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The number of births per 1,000 people in a year

Doubling time

The number of years it takes for a population to double at its current growth rate

Arithmetic density

The total number of people divided by the total land area

Physiological density

The number of people per unit of arable land

Agricultural density

The number of farmers per unit of arable land

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration

The kinds of people who typically migrate are young males and it usually from rural to urban

Cultural landscape

The visible imprint of human activity on the landscape

Cultural diffusion

The spread of cultural traits, ideas, or practices from one area to another

Contagious diffusion

Rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic through direct contact

Relocation diffusion

The spread of an idea or practice through the movement of people

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of ideas from authority figures or major nodes to others

Stimulus diffusion

When an idea spreads but is adapted or modified to fit a new culture

Assimilation

When a culture fully adopts another culture’s traits, losing its original identity

Syncretism

The blending of two or more cultural traits into a new, distinct cultural feature

Multiculturalism

The coexistence of multiple cultures in a society, often celebrated and preserved

Acculturation

When a culture adopts some traits of another while keeping its own identity

Mentifacts

The ideas, beliefs, and values of a culture

Sociofacts

The social structures and patterns of a culture, like family or government

Artifacts

The physical objects created by a society, such as tools or art

Ethnocentrism

Judging another culture based on one’s own cultural standards

Cultural relativism

Understanding a culture on its own terms without judgment

Cultural norms

Shared rules or expectations about behavior in a society

Centrifugal forces

Factors that divide or weaken a society

Centripetal forces

Factors that unify or strengthen a society

Language diffusion

The process by which languages spread from one area or group to another

Lingua franca

A common language used for communication between speakers of different native languages

Creolization

When a new language develops from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with local languages, often becoming a native language for a community

Political geography

The study of the ways in which the world is organized as a reflection of power that different groups hold over territory

State

A political organized independent territory with a government defined borders and a permanent population (country)

Sovereignty

The right of a government to control and defined its territory and determine what happens within its borders

Nations

A cultural entity made up of people who have forged a common identity through a shared language, religion, heritage, or ethnicity

Nation-state

The territory occupied by a group who views themselves as a nation is the same as the political recognized boundaries of the state, they called their own

Multistate nation

Consist of people who shared a cultural or ethnic background, but lives in more than one country

Irredentism

A country trying to acquire territories and neighboring states inhabited by people of the same nation

Multinational state

A country with various ethnicities and cultures living inside its borders

autonomous or semiautonomous

They are given authority to govern their own territory independently from the national government

Stateless nation

Describe a people united by culture, language, history, and tradition, but not possessing a state

Chokepoint

A narrow strategic passageway to another place through which it is difficult to pass

colonialism

Claiming and dominated overseas territories

Territoriality

Wanting to control and protect your space

Neocolonialism

The new kind of colonialism through economic pressures to control or influence other countries

shatterbelt

A place that is unstable and is always at war

Self-determination

The right of all people to choose their own political status

Imperialism

The push to create an empire by exercising force or influence to control other nations or people

Devolution

Increase when the central power in a state is broken up among regional authorities within its borders

delimit

Their boundaries by drawing them on a map accordance with a legal arrangement

Defending

Protecting your own land

Demarcated

Physical objects, such as stones, pillars, walls, or fences to show a borderline

Administer

to manage and control how people and goods move across borders and keep them protected

Antecedent boundaries

Established before many people settled into an area

Subsequent boundaries

drawn in areas that have been settled by people and where cultural landscape already exist, or is in process of being established

Consequent

a type of subsequent boundary differences that exist within a cultural landscape separating groups that have distinct languages, religion, magnetic, or other traits

Geometric boundaries

mathematical and typically flow lines of latitude and longitude or are straight lines arch between two points

Relics

Formal boundaries that once existed, but no longer have an official function