World Regions Chapters 1 and 5

World Regions Exam Review

What is Geography?

The study of the Earth's landscapes, environments, and the relationships between people and their environments. It encompasses the analysis of both physical features and human activities and their spatial relationships

What are seven ways to determine temperature in a particular location?

The angle in which the sun rays strike Earth

Number of daylight hours

water vapor

degree of cloud cover

nature of earth’s surface (inland vs. coastal), elevation about sea level,

degree of air movement

Temperature inversion

When rapid re radiation causes temperatures to be higher above the earth’s surface than at the surface itself

Lapse Rate

The rate at which temperature decreases with an increase in altitude in the atmosphere

How is lapse rate important to climatology?

Understanding how temperature changes with altitude, influencing regional and global climate patterns. Atmospheric stability, cloud formation, and precipitation. Help explain diverse weather phenomena and climate zones.

What causes the circulatory motion of air pressure systems? How do different air pressure systems respond to this force?

The Coriolis Effect; low-pressure systems spin counterclockwise and high-pressure systems clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.

Low-pressure systems spin?

counterclockwise; Southern hemisphere

High-pressure systems spin?

clockwise; Northern Hemisphere

Warm front characteristics

Slow moving

Usually generates drawn out periods of steady, light precipitation

Usually followed by a Low-Pressure System

Warm air mass moving quickly, cold air mass moving slowly

Cold front characteristics

Fast moving

Usually followed by a High-Pressure System

Cold air mass moving quickly, warm air mass moving slowly

Three types of precipitation

Conventional

Orographic

Frontal

Conventional Precipitation

Happens when the sun heats the Earth’s surface, causing the air above it to warm, rise, and then cool — leading to rain.

Orographic Precipitation

Mountain caused rain or snow

Air rises, temperatures cool

Frontal Precipitation

Hot and cold fronts

Caused when two air masses meet — usually a warm one and a cold one

Cooling air causes condensation

Eratosthenes

Wanted to measure the circumference of the earth

Accurate within 250 miles

Used the suns angles at different cities

Alexandria and Syene is 500 miles

Claudius Ptolemy

Ancient geographer who created maps using latitude and longitude; his work guided mapmakers for centuries

Alfred Weber

“Theory of the Location of Industries” - 1909

Dealt with activities at points rather than broad areas

Described 2 principal forces: Agglomerative Deglomerative

Köppen & Geiger

Created the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system still used today

Alexander von Humboldt

Explorer and scientist who linked climate and vegetation zones across continents, key figure in physical geography

Abraham Ortelius

Flemish cartographer who made the first modern atlas (1570)

Gerard Mercator

How to plot a course with a straight line on a curved surface

“The Mercator Projection”

First to use names like “North America’

A curved line is shorter than a straight line

Mark Jefferson

American geographer known for the primate city concept

Helped expand the study of geography in the United States to include the relationship between people and culture to their physical environment

John Harrison

Earth = 360 degrees

24 hours in a day

“Marine Timekeepers”

H1 - H3 clock had bulky design

H4 - Pocket watch

Waldo Tobler

Most well known for coining Tobler's first law of geography, which states that "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things

James Watt

Scottish inventor who improved the steam engine, sparking the Industrial Revolution and transforming transportation and geography

A unit of measurement

What were some of the lasting contributions of the Roman Empire to the rest of Europe?

Roads (Aqueducts, roads, bridges)

Laws (Roman law, Twelve tables)

Latin (Other romance languages)

Architecture (arches, domes, concrete)

City Planning (grid layouts, forums, baths)

Christianity

Twelve Tables

Ancient Rome’s first written laws (450 BCE) that made legal rules public and formed the basis for future European law

Polders

Reclaimed land from bodies of water (prominent in the Netherlands)

Primate city

A country’s largest (populated)  city

Always disproportionately larger than the second largest urban center - more than twice the size

Most expressive of the national culture

Usually (but not always) the capital city of the country

Ancona Line

Italy

Progressive north (industrial) and stagnant south (intensive agriculture)

Shatter belt

 Zone of chronic political splintering and fracturing

Supernatinoalism

A political and organizational framework where countries cede some degree of their sovereignty to a higher authority in order to pursue shared goals

Conurbation

A term used to describe a huge multi metropolitan complex formed by the coalescence of two or more major urban areas

Irredentism

 A policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a state aimed at a community of its nationals living in a neighboring state

Nation-State

A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity and unity. Also expressed as a political unit wherein the territorial state coincides with the area settled by a certain national group or people

Groma

Used to establish right angles and straight lines

Was the principal tool used by the Roman surveyors to trace on the ground simple and orthogonal alignments, necessary to the construction of roads, city, temples and agricultural lands subdivision

Nato

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

It provides a unique link between these two continents, enabling them to consult and cooperate in the field of defense and security, and conduct multinational crisis-management operations together

Break of Bulk

a point where goods must be moved from one kind of transport to another (ie: from boat to truck, from big boat to small boat, etc…)

Lander

Federal states that make up German, 16 total

Fjord

Narrow steep sided, inundated coastal valley

Created by glaciers that have retreated thus allowing sea water to fill the space left behind

Coriolis Effect

Is a deflective force arising from the rotation of the earth of its axis

Causes warm and cold fronts

It is proportional to the speed of Earth's rotation at different latitudes.

The key lies in Earth's rotation from west to east

T-O map

Structure of the map

A circle and a T with Asia at the top, Europe on the left, and Africa on the right and Jerusalem in the center

Isidore of Sevilla

Balkans

Violent dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1990

Name comes from a mountain range in Bulgaria

Triangle - Northern tip of the Adriatic Sea, Southern tip of the Greek mainland, N.W corner of the Black Sea (Odessa, Ukraine)

Balkanization

Term defined as the break-up of a region into smaller and often hostile units

Relative Location

Refers to the position of a place or entity based on its location with respect to other locations or landmarks

Benelux

Three countries collectively known as Benelux (economically unified since 1944)(12% size of France)

Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg

One of the most densely populated on earth; 28 million people inhabit an area the size of Maine

Agglomeration

Brings people, industry, and commerce into a single area/point

Core/ Periphery Concept

Core contains rich, more developed, and powerful areas, control trade and technology

Periphery contains poorer, less developed, raw materials

Karst Topography

A landscape of caves, sinkholes, and underground rivers formed by water dissolving limestone.

Mercantilism

An old economic system where countries gained wealth by controlling trade, exporting more than they imported, and using colonies for resources

Condensation Nuclei

When water moves from a gas to a liquid it needs to form around an object, examples like dust, smoke particles, pollen, microscopic salt crystal that are released through the atmosphere through wave action, if you can’t have this you can't have precipitation

Cumulonimbus clouds

Storm clouds

Tall, towering clouds that bring thunderstorms, heavy rain, hail, and sometimes tornadoes

Cartogram

Environmental Perception

Your perception of what the culture and physical landscape is of a particular place without having be there

Devolutionary Forces

The factors that lead to the decentralization of power from a central government to regional or local governments

Political, social, or economic