AP Human Geography Exam Study Guide

A comprehensive study guide for AP Human Geography covering essential vocabulary and concepts.

Absolute Location

The precise, fixed position of a place on Earth’s surface.

Acculturation

The process where a subordinate culture adopts traits from a dominant culture while retaining its original identity.

Cartography

The science of making maps.

Climate

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

Concentration

The spread of something over a given area.

Connection

Relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space.

Conservation

The sustainable management of a natural resource.

Cultural ecology

A geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

Cultural landscape

The fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group.

Diffusion

The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another.

Distance decay

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

Environmental determinism

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

An area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

The development and analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite and other electronic information technologies.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through satellites.

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate.

International Date Line

An arc that mostly follows 180-degree longitude looking to change calender days.

Latitude

The numbering system indicating the location of parallels drawn on a globe.

Location

The positioning of anything on Earth’s surface.

Longitude

The numbering system indicating the location of meridians drawn on a globe.

Map scale

The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the actual feature on Earth’s surface.

Mental map

A representation of a portion of Earth’s surface based on individual knowledge and impressions.

Place

A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic.

Projection

A system used to transfer locations from Earth’s surface to a flat map.

Region

An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.

Relocation diffusion

The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.

Renewable resource

Something produced in nature more rapidly than it is consumed by humans.

Resource

A substance in the environment that is useful to people and provides economic and social benefits.

Sustainability

The use of Earth's resources in ways that do not constrain resource use in the future.

Syncretism

The blending of two or more distinct cultural, religious, or linguistic traditions.

Toponym

The name given to a portion of the Earth's surface.

Uneven development

The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions.

Vernacular region

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