Human Geography unit 6

vocabulary test.

urban areas

high concentrations of people

suburbs

primarily residential areas near cities

rural areas

regions consisting of a few farms and small towns, sparsely populated

urbanization

process of developing towns and cities

suburbanization

process of people moving away from cities to the outskirts of cities

exurb

Small communities lying beyond the suburbs of a city

satellite city

when an established town near a very large city grows into a city independent of the larger one

city-states

a city that with its surrounding territory forms an independent state.

urban hearths

areas generally associated with river valleys in which seasonal floods and fertile soils aided the production of an agricultural surplus

MSA (metropolitan statistical area)

In the United States, a central city of at least 50,000 population, the country within which the city is located, and adjacent countries meeting one of several tests indicating a functional connection to the central city.

Micropolitan Statistical Area

An urbanized area of between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, the county in which it is found, and adjacent counties tied to the city.

nodal region

focal point in a matrix of connections (like commuters)

Borchert's Model/Epochs

Created in 1960s to predict and explain the growth of cities in four phases of transportation history: stage 1, the "sail wagon" era of 1790-1830; stage 2, the "iron horse" era of 1830-1870; stage 3, the "steel rail" era of 1870-1920; and stage 4, the current era of car and air travel that began after 1920.

Gravity Model

places larger and closer together will have more interaction

rank-size rule

In a model urban hierarchy, the idea that the population of a city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the hierarchy.

primate city

a disproportionately large city that dominates a country's economy, culture, and government and in which population is concentrated; usually the capita

Central Place Theory

Theory proposed by Walter Christaller that explains how and where central places in the urban hierarchy should be functionally and spatially distributed with respect to one another.

central place

A market center for the exchange of services by people attracted from the surrounding area.

market area

The area surrounding a central place, from which people are attracted to use the place's goods and services.

hexagonal hinterlands

Nesting hexagons allowed for central places of different sizes to distribute themselves in a clean pattern across a region. (Christaller)

threshold

The minimum number of people needed to support a service

range

The maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service.

Megacity

City with more than 10 million people

world cities

A group of cities that form an interconnected, internationally dominant system of global control of finance and commerce (London, NYC, Tokyo)

Megalopolis

a region in which several large cities and surrounding areas grow together ( BOSNYWASH)