AP. Human Geo CH.1 Part 1

Abiotic

Composed of nonliving or inorganic matter.

Absolute location

Description of the position of a place in a way that never changes, such as geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude.

Acculturation

The process of changes in culture that result from the meeting of two groups, each of which retains distinct cultural features.

Assimilation

The process by which a group's cultural features are altered to resemble those of another group.

Atmosphere

The thin layer of gases surrounding Earth.

Behavioral geography

An approach to human geography that emphasizes the importance of understanding the psychological basis for individual human actions in space.

Biosphere

All living organisms on Earth, including plants and animals, as well as microorganisms.

Biotic

Composed of living organisms.

Cartogram

A map in which the projection and scale are distorted in order to convey the information of a variable.

Cartography

The science of making maps.

Choropleth map

A map in which areas are shaded or patterned in proportion to the measurement of the variable.

Citizen science

Scientific research by amateur scientists.

Climate

The long-term average weather condition at a particular location.

Concentration

The extent of a feature's spread over a given area.

Connection

The relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.

Conservation

The sustainable management of a natural resource to meet human needs.

Contagious diffusion

The rapid, wide-spread diffusion of a feature or trend through-out a population.

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

Informally Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The time in the zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 00 longitude;

Cultural ecology

A geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

Cultural Landscape

An approach to geography that emphasizes the relationships among social and physical phenomena in a particular study area.

Culture

The body of customary beliefs, mate-rial traits, and social forms that together constitutes the distinct tradition of a group of people.

Density

The frequency with which some-thing exists within a given unit of area.

Diffusion

The process by which a feature spreads from one place to another over time.

Distance decay

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

Distribution

The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.

Dot distribution map

A map that depicts data that consists of discrete observations. Each dot represents a predetermined number of observations, which could be one or many.

Ecology

The scientific study of ecosystems.

Ecosystem

A group of Living organisms and the abiotic spheres with which they interact.

Environmental determinism

A nineteenth-and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography which argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.

Expansion diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in an additive process.

Formal region (or uniform region)

An area in which most people share in one or more distinctive characteristics.

Functional region (or nodal region)

An area organized around a node or focal point.

Geographic information science (GIScience)

Analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies.

Geographic information system (GIS)

A computer system that captures, stores, queries, and displays geographic data.

Geotagging

Identification and storage of a piece of information by its precise latitude and longitude coordinates.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

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

Globalization

Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.

Graduated symbol map

A map that dis-plays symbols that change in size according to the value of the variable.

Hearth

A place from which an innovation originates.

Hierarchical diffusion

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

Humanistic geography

An approach to human geography that emphasizes the different ways that individuals form ideas about place and give those places symbolic meanings.

Hydrosphere

All of the water on and near Earth's surface.

International Date Line

An arc that for the most part follows 180 longitude. When the International Date Line is crossed heading east (toward America), the clock moves back 24 hours, or one entire day. When it is crossed heading west (toward Asia), the calendar moves ahead one day.

Isoline map

A map that connects places of a particular value by lines.

Latitude

The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (00).

Lithosphere

Earth's crust and a portion of upper mantle directly below the crust.

Location

The position of anything on Earth's surface.

Longitude

The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (00).