Vocabulary Exam Review Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards for exam review.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.

Hierarchical Diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.

Total Fertility Rate

The average number of children a woman will have throughout her childbearing years.

Natural Rate Increase

The percentage growth of a population in a year, computed as crude birth rate minus the crude death rate.

Distance Decay

The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.

Space-Time Compression

The reduction in time it takes to diffuse something as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.

Pidgin Language

A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca.

Concentric Zone Model

A model of the internal structure of cities in which social groups are spatially arranged in a series of rings.

Redlining

A process by which financial institutions draw red-colored lines on a map and refuse to lend money for people to purchase or improve property within the lines.

Greenbelt

A ring of land maintained as parks, agriculture, or other types of open space to limit the sprawl of an urban area.

Squatter Settlement

An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures.

Primate City

The largest settlement in a country, if it has more than twice as many people as the second-ranking settlement.

Rank-Size Rule

A pattern of settlements in a country such that the nth largest settlement is 1/n the population of the largest settlement.

Central Place Theory

A theory that explains the distribution of services based on the fact that settlements serve as centers of market areas for services; larger settlements are fewer and farther apart than smaller settlements and provide services for a larger number of people who are willing to travel farther.

Outsourcing

A decision by a corporation to turn over much of the responsibility for production to independent suppliers.

Post-Fordist Production

Adoption by companies of flexible work rules.

Cottage Industry

Manufacturing based in homes rather than in factories.

Double Cropping

Harvesting twice a year from the same field.

Crop Rotation

The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid exhausting the soil.

Pastoral Nomadism

A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.

Gross Domestic Product

The value of the total output of goods and services produced in a country in a year.

Gerrymandering

The designation of voting districts so as to favor a particular party or candidate.

Imperialism

The perpetuation of a colonial empire even after it is no longer politically sovereign.

Colonialism

The attempt by a country to establish settlements and impose political and economic control principles.

Nation-State

A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity.

State

Politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by the international community.

Centrifugal Force

A force or attitude that tends to divide a state.

Centripetal Force

An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state.

Blockbusting

A process by which real estate agents convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of fear that persons of color will soon move into the neighborhood.

Hierarchical Religion

A religion in which a central authority exercises a high degree of control.

Isogloss

A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.

Lingua Franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people with different native languages.

Vernacular Region

An area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.

Chain Migration

Migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there.

International Migration

Permanent movement from one country to another.

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate.

Environmental Determinism

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 alternatives.

Scale

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

Arithmetic Density

The total number of people divided by the total land area.

Dependency Ratio

The number of people under age 15 and over age 64 compared to the number of people active in the labor force.