Unit 4 AP Human Geography Vocab Quiz #1

Textbook Vocabulary ONLY.

Autonomous Regions

A defined area within a state that has a high degree of self-government and freedom from its parent state.

Annexation

The process of legally adding territory to a city.

Balance of Power

Condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries.

Berlin Conference

The drawing of state borders in Africa due to European land claims with complete disregard to previously existing ethno-linguistic, cultural, and political boundaries.

Boundary

An invisible line that marks the outer limits of a state’s territory.

City-State

A small sovereign state that is made up of a town or city and the surrounding area.

Centripetal Force

A force which helps to unify people within a country.

Centrifugal Force

A force which tends to divide people, break states apart, or even prevent states from forming.

Census

A count of the population every 10 years to ensure the national and congressional districts have approximately the same number of people.

Colonialism

A particular type of imperialism in which people move into and settle on the land of another country.

Cold War

A period of diplomatic, political, and military rivalry between the United States and the USSR.

Cracking

Dispersing a group into several districts to prevent a majority.

Cultural Boundary

divides people according to some cultural division, such as language, religion, or ethnicity.

Decolonization

The undoing of colonization, in which indigenous people reclaim sovereignty over their territory.

Defined Boundary

Established by a legal document, such as a treaty, that divides one entity from another (invisible line). The entity could range from a country-in which points latitude and longitude are specified-to a single plot of real estate-in which points in the landscape are described.

Delimited Boundary

Drawn on a map by a cartographer to show the limits of a space.

Demarcated Boundary

A boundary identified by physical objects placed on the landscape. The demarcation may be as simple as a sign or as complex as a set of fences and walls.

Neocolonialism

A new form of colonialism in which economic, political, or even cultural control is indirectly exerted over developing countries.

Devolution

The process in which one or more regions are given increased autonomy by the central political unit.

Ethnographic

To be usually related to cultural phenomena.

Federal State

Unites separate political entities into an overarching system that allows each entity to maintain some degree of sovereignty.

Frontier

A zone of territory where no state has governing authority.

Genocide

Organized mass killing in which people are targeted because of their race, religion ethnicity, or nationality.

Gerrymandering

The drawing of boundaries for political districts by the party in power to protect or increase its power.

Geometric Boundary

A straight line or arc drawn by people that does not closely follow any physical feature.

Hijacking

Redrawing two districts in order to force two elected representatives of the same party to run against each other.

Imperialism

A broader concept that includes a variety of ways of influencing another country or group of people by direct conquest, economic control, or cultural dominance.

Kidnapping

Moving an area where an elected representative has support to an area where he or she does not have support.

Microstates

A sovereign state having a very small population or land area (usually both).

Militarized Boundary

A boundary that is heavily guarded and discourages crossing.

Multistate Nation

Occurs when a nation has a state of its own but stretches across borders of other states.

Multinational State

A country that contains more than one nation.

Nationalism

The attachment of a person to a particular nation, or a political action by such a group to achieve statehood (or national self-determination).

Terrorism

Organized violence aimed at government and civilian targets to create fear for the advancement of political goals.

Uneven Development

The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy. The non-uniform advancement of humans over Earth’s space.

Unitary State

A state in which most or all of the governing power is held by the national government.

Self-Determination

Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves

Nation-state

A state whose territory corresponds to that5 occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.

Packing

A type of gerrymandering where like-minded voters are combined into one district to prevent them from affection elections in other districts.

Physical Boundary

Boundary that separates territories according to natural features in the landscape, such as mountains, rivers or deserts.

Semiautonomous Region

area where a group has some type of political autonomy

Sovereignty

Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states.

Stacking

Diluting the minority

State

An independent political unit that occupies a specific territory and has full control of its internal and external affairs.

Stateless Nation

A nation of people that does not possess its own sovereign state and is not the majority population of any nation state.