Unit 6.1-6.4 AP human

Vocab terms

Site

the characteristics at the immediate location

Situation

location of a place relative to its surroundings

Urbanization

The process of developing towns and cities

Megacities

Megacities have a population of more than 10 million people and are the world’s largest cities

metacities

They are continuous urban areas with a population greater than 20 million people. They also have attributes of a network of urban areas that have grown together to form a larger interconnected urban system.

periphery

countries that usually have low levels of economic productivity, low per capita incomes, and low standards of living

semi-periphery

Countries that have a standard of living lower than core countries but higher than periphery countries.

suburbanization

People moving, usually from cities, to residential areas on outskirts of cities

urban sprawl

Rapid expansion of spatial extent of a city because of growth of suburbs, lower land costs in suburbs, weak planning laws, and more.

urban decentralization

the tendency of people or businesses and industry to locate outside the central city

edge city

Nodes of economic activity developed in the periphery of large cities located at the junction of major transportation routes

exurb

Residential districts beyond suburbs

boomburb

Rapidly growing communities that have a total population of over 100,000 people, and are not the largest city in the metro area

world city

the world’s cities that function as major nodes in the world economy and exert influence beyond their national boundaries

urban hierarchy

Ranking based on influence or population size

globalization

trade and technology made the world a more connected and interdependent place

rank-size rule

**one way size of cities within a region may develop;** Nth largest city in any region will be 1/n the size of the largest city.

primate city

If the largest city is more than twice as large as the next cities, they are called primate cities. They are more developed and more powerful than other cities.

gravity model

larger and closer places will have more interactions than places that are smaller and farther from each othe

Christaller’s central place theory

Explain distribution of cities of different sizes across a region; important concepts include central place, market areas, threshold, and range