AP Human Geography KBAT Terms Chapters 1-5

Cartography

The science of making maps

Contagious Diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.

Cultural Ecology

Geographic approach that emphasizes human-environment relationships.

Culture

The body of customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits that together constitute a group of people's distinct tradition.

Density

The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area

Diffusion

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

Distance-decay

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

Distribution

The arrangement of something across Earth's surface

Environmental Determinism

A 19th and early 20th 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 a snowballing process.

Formal Region

(aka a uniform or homogeneous region) An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics.

Functional Region

(or nodal region) An area organized around a node or focal point

Geographic Information System (GIS)

A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

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

Gravity Model

A model that holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service.

Hierarchical Diffusion

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

Hearth

The region from which innovative ideas originate

International Date Line

An arc that for the most part follows 180° longitude, although it deviates in several places to avoid dividing land areas.

Latitude

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

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

Possibilism

The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.

Prime Meridian

The meridian, designated at 0° longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.

Projection

The system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map.

Relocation Diffusion

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

Remote Sensing

The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.

Scale

The relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole, specifically the relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface

Site

The physical character of a place

Situation

The location of a place relative to other places

Space-time Compression

The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems

Stimulus Diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.

Toponym

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

Uneven Development

The increasing gap in economic conditions between core and peripheral regions as a result of the globalization of the economy.

Vernacular Region (or Perceptual Region)

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

Agricultural Density

The ratio of the number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture

Arithmetic Density

The total number of people divided by the total land area

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The total number of deaths in a year for every 1,000 people alive in said society

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The total number of births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in said society

Demography

The scientific study of population characteristics

Ecumene

The portion of Earth's surface occupied by permanent human settlement

Overpopulation

The number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard living

Physiological Density

The number of people per unit of area of arable land, which is land suitable for agriculture.

Doubling Time

The number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of natural increase

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

The total number of deaths in a year among infants under 1 year old for every 1,000 live births in a society

Life Expectancy (Longevity Rate)

The average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given current social, economic, and medical conditions. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live

Natural Increase Rate (NIR)

The percentage growth of a population in a year, computed as the crude birth rate minus the crude death rate

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children a woman will have throughout her childbearing years.

Demographic Transition

The process of change in a societies population from a condition of low crude birth and death rates, low rate of natural increase, and a higher total population.

Census

A complete enumeration of a population.

Child Mortality Rate (CMR)

The number of children who die by the age of five, per 1,000 live births per year.

Carrying Capacity

The maximum population size of a species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment.

Cornucopians

Futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology. Fundamentally they believe that there is enough matter and energy on the Earth to provide for the ever-rising population of the world.

J-Curve

In economics, the 'J curve' refers to the trend of a country's trade balance following a devaluation or depreciation under a certain set of assumptions.

Contraception

Birth control, also known as contraception and fertility control, are methods or devices used to prevent pregnancy. Planning, provision and use of birth control is called family planning. Birth control methods have been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods only became available in the 20th century.

Dependency Ratio

The number of people under the age of 15 and over the age 64, compared to the number of people active in the labor force.

Epidemiologic Transition

Distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition.

Population Agglomeration

In the study of human settlements, an urban agglomeration ia an extended city or town area comprising the built-up area of a central place (usually a municipality) and any suburbs linked by continuous urban area.

Population Pyramid

A bar graph representing the distribution of population by age and sex.

Replacement Fertility

"Replacement level fertility" is the total fertility rate--the average number of children born per woman--at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. This rate is roughly 2.1 children per woman for most countries, although it may modestly vary with mortality rates.

Sex Ratio

The number of males per 100 females in the population.

Zero Population Growth (ZPG)

A decline of the total fertility rate to the point where the natural increase rate equals zero.

Brain drain

Large-scale emigration by talented people

Chain Migration

Migration of people to a specific location because relatives or members of the same nationality previously migrated there

Circulation

Short-term, repetitive, or cyclical movements that recur on a regular basis

Diaspora

The dispersion of any people from their original homeland

Emigration

Migration from a location

Migration

Form of relocation diffusion involving a permanent move to a new location

Forced Migration

Permanent movement compelled usually by cultural factors

Voluntary Migration

Permanent movement undertaken by choice

Guest Worker

Workers who migrate to MDC's of Northern and Western Europe, usually from Southern and Eastern Europe or from North Africa, in search of higher-paying jobs

Internal Migration

Permanent movement within a particular country

International Migration

Permanent movement from one country to another

Intervening Obstacle

An environmental or cultural feature of the landscape that hinder migration

Migration Transition

Change in the migration pattern in a society that results in industrialization, population growth, and other social and economic changes that also produce that demographic transition

Mobility

All types of movement from one location to another

Net Migration

The difference between the level of immigration and the level of emigration

Pull Factor

Factors that induce people to move to a new location

Push Factor

Factor that induces people to leave old residences

Refugees

People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion

Transhumance

The seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pastures

Urbanization

An increase in the percentage and in the number of people living in urban settlements.

Counterurbanization

Net migration from urban to rural areas in more developed countries.

Acculturation

The process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group

Assimilation

The process of adapting or adjusting to the culture of a group or nation, or the state of being so adapted

Artifact

A handmade object, as a tool, or the remains of one, as a shard of pottery, characteristic of an earlier time or cultural stage, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.

Built Environment

The part of the physical landscape that represent material culture; the buildings, roads, bridges, etc.

Core-domain-sphere model

The place where concentration of culture traits that characterizes a region is greatest

Cultural Convergence

The tendency for cultures to become more alike as they increasingly share technology and organizational structures in a modern world united by improved transportation and communication.

Cultural/Environmental Perception

The concept that people of different culture will definitely observe and interpret their environment and make different decision about its nature, potentiality and use.

Cultural Landscape

Modifications to the environment by humans (including the built environment and agricultural systems, that reflect aspects if their culture)

Culture Realm

A collective of culture regions sharing related culture systems; a major world area having sufficient distinctiveness to be perceived as a set apart from other realms in terms of cultural characteristics and complexes.

Culture Hearth

An area within which an advanced and distinctive set of culture traits, ideas and technologies develops and from which there is diffusion of those characteristics and the cultural landscape features they imply.

Culture Complex

A related set of cultural traits descriptive of one aspect of a society's behavior or activity (may be associated with religious beliefs or business practices)

Culture Trait

A single, distinguishing feature of regular occurrence within a culture, such as the use of chopsticks or the observance of a particular caste system. A single element of learned behavior.

Culture Region

A formal or functional region within which common cultural characteristics prevail.

Custom

The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group of people performing the act.

Folk Culture (Folkways)

Culture traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups.

Globalization

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

Habit

A repetitive act performed by a particular individual

Material Culture

The tangible, physical items produced and used by members of a specific cultural group and reflective of their traditions, lifestyles, and technologies

Mentifact

The central, enduring elements of a culture expressing its values and beliefs, including language, religion, folklore, etc.