HGAP review

Everything you should apparently know for AP human geography :)

Cartography

The science of mapmaking.

GPS

Global Positioning System; a contemporary tool used in geography.

GIS

Geographic Information System; a contemporary tool used in geography.

Remote Sensing

A contemporary tool used in geography to gather data about the Earth's surface from a distance.

Photogrammetry

The science of making measurements from photographs, especially for surveying and mapping.

Cultural Ecology

The study of the interactions between societies and their environments.

Human-Environment Interaction (HEI)

The interaction between human societies and the natural environment.

Environmental Determinism

The concept that the environment dictates societal development.

Possibilism

The theory that the environment sets limits, but people can adapt and adjust.

Cultural Determinism

The belief that culture primarily shapes human behavior and societies.

Five Themes of Geography

Location, Place, Human-Environment Interaction, Movement, and Region.

Place

A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic.

Location

The position of anything on Earth's surface.

Movement

The mobility of people, goods, and ideas across the surface of the planet.

Regionalization

The process of dividing an area into smaller segments called regions.

Geography

The study of the physical features of the earth and its atmosphere, and of human activity as it affects and is affected by these.

Human Geography

The branch of geography dealing with how human activity affects or is influenced by the earth's surface.

Physical Geography

The branch of geography dealing with natural features and processes.

Latitude Zones

Low (tropics), Middle, High (poles)

Absolute Location

Exact location of a place on the earth described by global coordinates

Relative Location

The position of a place in relation to another place

Formal (Uniform) Region

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

Functional (Nodal) Region

An area organized around a node or focal point.

Perceptual (Vernacular) Region

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

Globalization

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

Distance Decay

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

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

Transnational Corporations

A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.

Cartogram

A map in which the size of an area is distorted to reflect a particular statistical value.

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.

Contour/Topographic Map

A map showing elevation using contour lines.

Dot Density/Distribution Map

A map that uses dots to represent the frequency of a variable in a given area.

Graduated Symbol Map

A map with symbols that change in size according to the value of the attribute they represent.

Isoline Map

A map that uses lines to join points of equal value.

Scale (Fractional/Ratio, Written, Graphical)

The relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole.

Map Projection

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

Gall-Peters Projection

An equal area map projection that distorts shape of land masses.

Robinson Projection

A map projection that attempts to balance distortions of shape, size, distance and direction.

Mercator Projection

A map projection that preserves shape and direction, but distorts area.

Toponym

The name given to a place on Earth.

Site

The physical character of a place.

Situation (Relative Location)

The location of a place relative to other places.

Mathematical Location (Absolute Location)

The exact location of a place, usually expressed by latitude and longitude.

Qualitative Data

Descriptive information, often from interviews or surveys.

Quantitative Data

Numerical information.

Scales of Analysis

Local, National, Regional, Global. County/Country/Continental

Spatial Analysis

The technique applied to analyze the spatial distribution of phenomena.

Spatial Patterns

Density vs. Concentration, Clustered vs. Dispersed, Random, Linear, Rectilinear, Centralized.

Density

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

Concentration

The spread of something over a given area.

Clustered

Objects in an area are closely arranged.

Dispersed

Objects in an area are relatively far apart.

Spatial Perspective

Observing variations in geographic phenomena across space.

Time Zones

An area that has the same standard time.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)

The time in that time zone encompassing the Prime Meridian, or 0 degrees longitude.

International Date Line

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

Arable Land

Land suited for agriculture.

Brain Gain

The immigration of talented individuals from other countries.

Brain Drain

The emigration of highly trained or intelligent people from a particular country.

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.

Activity Space

The area within which people move freely on their typical rounds of regular activity.

Ecumene

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

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI or NIR)

The percentage by which a population grows in a year, excluding migration.

Net Migration

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

Demographic Equation

The formula that calculates population change as a result of natural increase or decrease and net migration.

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

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

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

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

Dependency Ratio

The number of people who are too young or too old to work, compared to the number of people in their productive years.

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

The annual number of deaths of infants under one year of age, compared with total live births.

Life Expectancy

The average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given current social, economic, and medical conditions.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

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

Sex Ratio

The number of males per 100 females in the population.

Demographic Momentum

The tendency for growing population to continue growing after a fertility decline because of their young age distribution.

Arithmetic Density

The total number of people divided by the total land area.

Physiological Density

The number of people per unit area of arable land.

Agricultural Density

The ratio of the number of farmers to the amount of arable land.

Doubling Time

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

Immigration

Migration to a new location.

Emigration

Migration from a location.

Intervening Obstacles

An environmental or cultural feature that hinders migration.

Intervening Opportunities

The presence of a nearer opportunity that greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away.

International Migration

Permanent movement from one country to another.

Internal Migration

Permanent movement within the same country.

Interregional Migration

Movement from one region of a country to another.

Intraregional Migration

Movement within one region.

Guest Workers

A legal immigrant who is allowed into the country to fill a specific job.

Time Contract Workers

Immigrants recruited for a fixed period to work in mines or plantations.

Undocumented Workers

Individuals who enter a country without proper documents.

Endemic

Disease that is constantly present to a greater or lesser degree in people of a certain class or in people living in a particular location.

Epidemic

A widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.

Pandemic

Disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a very high proportion of the population.

Overpopulation

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

Carrying Capacity

The largest number of people that the environment of a particular area can sustainably support.

Sustainability

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

Sustainable Development

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration

A set of generalizations about migration.

Gravity Model

A model which predicts the interaction between places on the basis of their population size and distance between them.

Refugees

People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution.

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

People who have been displaced within their own countries and do not cross international borders.