Human Geography Flashcards

Flashcards generated from Human Geography Review Packet

What is a Choropleth map?

A map that uses differences in shading, coloring, or the placing of symbols within predefined areas to indicate the average values of a property or quantity in those areas.

What is a Topographic map?

A map showing elevation contours and physical features.

What is a Graduated Symbol map?

A map that uses symbols of different sizes to represent numerical values.

What is a Political map?

A map showing governmental boundaries of countries, states, and counties.

What is a Dot-Density map?

A map in which a dot represents some frequency of the mapped variable.

What is a Cartogram map?

A map in which the size of an area is proportional to a particular value.

What is a Physical map?

A map showing natural features of the Earth's surface.

What is a Clustered pattern distribution?

Dots that are grouped together

What is a Linear pattern distribution?

Dots that are in a line/row.

What is a Dispersed pattern distribution?

Dots that are scattered.

What is a Circular pattern distribution?

Dots that are in a circular shape.

What is a Geometric pattern distribution?

Dots that are forming a shape like triangle, squares etc.

What is a Random pattern distribution?

Dots that have no apparent order.

What is Geographic Information System (GIS)?

Computer systems that can store, analyze, and display information from multiple digital maps or geospatial data sets.

What is Remote Sensing?

A method that gathers information from satellites that orbit the Earth.

What is Landscape Analysis?

The task of defining and describing landscapes.

What is Spatial Data?

All the information that can be tied to specific locations.

What is Global Positioning System (GPS)?

GPS receivers on the earth’s surface use the locations of multiple satellites to determine and record a receiver’s exact location.

What is Environmental Determinism?

Suggests that the physical environment, particularly the climate and terrain, shapes human societies and cultural development.

What is Possibilism?

Suggests that while the environment sets certain constraints, human culture and innovation can overcome these limitations to shape societal development.

What is Spatial Interaction?

Advancements in transportation and communication technologies have significantly increased interaction between distant regions, facilitating the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultural practices.

What is Distance Decay?

The influence of the central business district that diminishes as one moves further away from the city center.

What is Site?

The location selected based on its proximity to major transportation routes and its elevation above flood-prone areas.

What is Situation?

Location on the Potomac River, surrounded by the states of Virginia and Maryland.

What is Toponym?

Name 'New York' reflects the city's historical connection to York in England.

What is Sense of Place?

The historic district's unique architecture and vibrant community events.

What is Built-environment?

Including its roads, bridges, and buildings.

What is Formal Region?

An area that shares a common language or the Sahara Desert.

What is Functional Region?

A pizza delivery area or an airport and locations connected by flights.

What is Vernacular Region?

Upstate New York or Silicon Valley.

What is population distribution?

The pattern of human settlement- the spread of people across the earth.

What is population density?

A measure of the average population per square mile or kilometer of an area.

What is arithmetic population density?

Calculated by dividing a region’s population by its total area.

What is physiological population density?

By dividing population by the amount of arable land, or the land suitable for growing.

What is agricultural population density?

The number of farmers divided by the arable land.

What is overpopulated?

When a region has more people than it can support.

What is carrying capacity?

The number of people a region can support without damaging the environment

What does a stable population pyramid tell us about the development of these countries?

Developed, with decent healthcare and stable government (ex: United States).

What does a rapid population pyramid tell us about the development of these countries?

Developing, with poor healthcare and short life expectancy (ex: Nigeria).

What does a declining population pyramid tell us about the development of these countries?

Developed, with good healthcare, but a declining birthrate (ex: Germany/Japan).

What is crude birth rate?

Number of life births per year per 1,000 people

What is crude death rate?

Number of deaths per year per 1,000 people

What is total fertility rate?

Average number of children who would be born per women ages 15 to 49

What is rate of natural increase?

Percentage at which a country’s population is growing or declining

Summarize Malthusian Theory.

Food production will increase steadily, but population will eventually grow faster, leading to overpopulation.

Summarize Boserup Theory.

The more people there are, the more hands to work, therefore food production and population increase together.

Summarize Neo-Malthusian Theory.

Still argue that Malthus’ theory is true, even though it has not happened, and are worried about non-renewable resources.

What is Antinatalist Policy?

Policies that attempt to decrease the number of births (ex: China’s One Child Policy).

What is Pronatalist Policy?

Programs designed to increase fertility, common in countries with a large elderly population (ex: France, Sweden, Japan).

What is voluntary migration?

A movement made by choice

What is immigrant?

A person who migrates across an international border with the intention of staying permanently

What is emigrate?

When someone leaves a location

What is step migration?

A process in which migrants reach their eventual destination through a series of smaller moves

What is counter migration?

Each migration flow produces a movement in the opposite direction

What is forced migration?

Migration that is involuntary

Who are internally displaced persons?

Migrants that move to another part of the same country due to political or environmental factors

Who are refugees?

Migrant that moves to another country due to political or environmental factors

What is asylum?

Protection granted by one country to an immigrant from another country who has a legitimate fear if harm or death

What is Guest-worker?

policies that regulate the number of workers that can temporarily enter a country to work in a specific industry

What is Xenophobia?

Strong dislike of a specific culture

What is ethnic enclaves?

Neighborhoods filled primarily with people of the same ethnic group

What is a cultural hearth?

The area in which a unique culture or trait begins

What is diffusion?

The spread of people, ideas, and culture

What is traditional culture?

Passed down, long-held beliefs, values, and practices

What is folk culture?

Beliefs and practices of a small, homogeneous group of people

What is pop culture?

Cultural traits spread quickly over a large area

Examples of Ethnic/Religious group that resides in the Midwest

Lutherans

Examples of Ethnic/Religious group that resides in the Utah

Mormons

Examples of Ethnic/Religious group that resides in the New England

Congregationalists

Examples of Ethnic/Religious group that resides in the Northeast & Southwest

Roman Catholics

Examples of Ethnic/Religious group that resides in the Southeast

Baptists & Methodists

Examples of Ethnic/Religious group that resides in the Urban areas

Jews, Muslims, & Hindus

What are Centripetal forces?

Those that unify a group of people

What are Centrifugal forces?

Those that divide a group of people

What is stimulus diffusion?

When an underlying idea from a cultural hearth is adopted by another culture but the adopting group modifies or rejects a trait.

What is contagious diffusion?

When a cultural trait spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people.

What is Reverse hierarchical diffusion?

When a trait diffuses form a group of lower status to a group of higher status.

What is relocation diffusion?

When a trait is spread by those who migrate and carry the trait with them.

What is Hierarchical diffusion?

When a trait is spread outward from the most interconnected places or from the centers of wealth and influence.

What is Expansion diffusion?

When a trait is spread through exchange without migration.

What is cultural convergence?

Cultures becoming similar to each other and sharing traits

What is cultural divergence?

Culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation and modern technology create division

Ethnic religion

Belief traditions that emphasize strong cultural characteristics among followers

Universalizing religion

Actively seeks converts to faith regardless of their ethnic background

What is assimilation?

Happens when an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group.

What is Nativist?

Belief of protecting the native-born population of a country or cultural group.

What is Syncretism?

The fusion or blending of two distinctive cultural traits into a unique new hybrid trait.

What is Acculturation?

When an ethnic group moving to a new area adopts the values of the larger group while still maintaining elements of their own culture.

What is multiculturalism?

The coexistence of several cultures in one society.

What is a Nation-State?

A nation of people who fulfill the qualifications of a state: Japan & Iceland.

What is a Multi-national state?

A country that contains more than one state: Canada.

What is an Autonomous region?

Defined area within a state that has a high degree of self-government.

What is a Semi-autonomous region?

A state that has a degree of, but not complete self-rule: Native Americans.

What is Stateless nation?

A cultural group that has no political entity: Palestine, Kurds, Navajo.

What is a Multi-state nation?

When a nation has a state of its own, but stretches across borders of other states: Korea.

Defining Political Boundaries- Subsequent boundary

This boundary is typically created while the cultural landscape is evolving and is subject to change over time.

Defining Political Boundaries- Defined boundary

This type of boundary is established by a legal document, such as a treaty, that divides one entity from another.

Defining Political Boundaries- Militarized boundary

A boundary that is heavily guarded and discourages crossing.

Defining Political Boundaries- Geometric boundary

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

Defining Political Boundaries- UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

This document was signed by more than 150 countries between 1973 and 1982, and defined four different zones of the sea.