AP Human Geography Unit Review Cheat Sheet

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the key terms and concepts from the seven units of AP Human Geography, including spatial analysis, population, culture, politics, agriculture, urban patterns, and economic development.

Reference maps

Maps that show locations of places and geographic features, such as political boundaries or road networks.

Thematic maps

Maps that show spatial patterns of specific variables, such as choropleth, dot, isoline, or cartogram maps.

GIS

Layered digital mapping used to analyze and display geographic data.

Remote sensing

The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite or other long-distance methods like aerial imagery.

Absolute location

The exact position of a place on the earth's surface, typically given in latitude and longitude or a specific street address.

Distance decay

The concept that the interaction between two places declines as the distance between them increases.

Time-space compression

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

Environmental determinism

The belief that the physical environment, especially climate and terrain, actively shapes and controls human behavior and culture.

Possibilism

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

Formal region

A region defined by a uniform characteristic throughout its entire area, such as the Corn Belt.

Functional region

A region organized around a node or focal point, such as a metropolitan area or a pizza delivery zone.

Perceptual region

A region that exists as a conceptual idea or mental map rather than a physically demarcated entity, such as 'the South'.

Arithmetic density

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

Physiological density

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

Agricultural density

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

NIR

The percentage growth of a population in a year, computed as $NIR = (CBR - CDR) / 10 \text{ (\%)}$.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

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

Epidemiological transition

The shift in the distinctive causes of death in each stage of the demographic transition, specifically from infectious diseases to chronic or degenerative diseases.

Malthusian Theory

The argument that population grows geometrically while food supply increases arithmetically, leading to eventual famine and population collapse.

Ravenstein's Laws

A series of generalizations about migration, including that most migrants move short distances, long-distance migrants head for cities, and every migration flow generates a counterstream.

Brain drain

Large-scale emigration by talented or skilled people, leaving the origin country without their expertise.

Remittances

Money that migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries, often forming an important part of the economy in many LDCs.

Cultural landscape

The visible human imprint on the land, consisting of buildings, agricultural patterns, and other physical manifestations of human activity.

Ethnocentrism

The practice of judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture.

Relocation diffusion

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

Contagious diffusion

The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population by contact from person to person.

Hierarchical diffusion

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

Stimulus diffusion

The spread of an underlying principle or idea even though a specific characteristic is rejected or modified, such as the McDonald's menu being adapted in different countries.

Universalizing religions

Religions that attempt to be global and appeal to all people, actively seeking converts, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Lingua franca

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.

Syncretism

The blending of traits from two different cultures to form a new cultural trait.

State

An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government that has sovereignty over its internal and foreign affairs.

Stateless nation

A nation or cultural group that does not have a territory of its own, such as the Kurds or Palestinians.

Sovereignty

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

Superimposed boundary

A boundary line placed over and ignoring an existing cultural pattern, usually forced by an outside power.

Relic boundary

A former boundary line that is no longer functional but is still visible on the landscape.

Unitary state

An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials.

Devolution

The transfer of certain powers from the central government to separate political subdivisions within the state's territory.

Gerrymandering

The process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power.

Centrifugal forces

Forces that tend to divide a country, such as ethnic conflict, economic inequality, or regional separatism.

Shatterbelt

A region caught between stronger colliding external cultural-political forces, under persistent stress, and often fragmented by aggressive rivals.

Green Revolution

A trend in the 1960s-70s involving high-yield seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation that significantly increased food output in LDCs but also caused environmental damage.

Subsistence agriculture

Agriculture designed primarily to provide food for direct consumption by the farmer and the farmer's family.

Intensive agriculture

A form of subsistence or commercial agriculture in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort and inputs per acre to produce the maximum feasible yield.

Von Thünen Model

A model that explains the location of agricultural activities in a profit-maximizing economy, where rings of land use are arranged around a central market based on transport cost and land rent.

Agribusiness

Large-scale commercial farming that is integrated into a large food-production industry, including processing and distribution.

Megacity

A city with a total population of over 10 million people.

Suburbanization

The movement of people from the urban core to the surrounding outskirts or suburbs.

Bid-rent theory

A geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand for real estate change as the distance from the CBD increases.

Gentrification

A process of converting an urban neighborhood from a predominantly low-income, renter-occupied area to a predominantly middle-class, owner-occupied area.

Edge cities

Nodes of consumer and business services that have developed around beltways in suburban areas.

Weber's least cost theory

A theory describing the location of an industry based on minimizing transportation, labor, and agglomeration costs.

Primary sector

The portion of the economy concerned with the direct extraction of materials from Earth's surface, such as farming and mining.

HDI

An indicator of the level of development for each country, constructed by the United Nations, that combines income, literacy, education, and life expectancy.

Rostow's stages of growth

A five-stage model of development that countries follow, starting from a traditional society and ending with high mass consumption.

Wallerstein's world-systems theory

A structuralist theory that divides the world into the core (MDCs), periphery (LDCs), and semi-periphery, highlighting the economic exploitation of the periphery by the core.

Comparative advantage

The ability of an individual or group to carry out a particular economic activity (such as making a specific product) more efficiently than another activity.